Gods and Demons
by Keleri
Summary: Gaiien: a young region with an ancient past. What secrets lurk within its dark forests and sheer mountains? Three trainers test their skills against the elements, the Wild and the League. Rated for language, violence and mature themes. Please R&R!
1. Prologue: A Fistful of Stars

Prologue: A Fistful of Stars

_"When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."_ - Friedrich Nietzsche

Below, all is dark, one thousand shades of black tinted green and brown and blue by the stars, the gems set into the velvet blackness of the space between the worlds. The moon has waned to nothing for this night. Creatures of the shadow, of death and decay, of strange deeds done by starlight… tonight is theirs. The stars shine down on the ancient forests, the endless plains, the volcanic beaches, the trackless deserts and the mountains, old as time and jagged as a boneyard.

The view goes lower, focusing on one such peak. It stands above its fellows, the fang of some long-dead stone beast. It is robed in pines, white with snow… but its summit is as bare and stony as a northern beach. Not even the snow would dare to fall in this place.

It is a clear night, a rare occurrence on this area of the continent, but on the mountain, every night is like this. The stars shine down, glittery as diamonds and twice as cold. The peak is the focal point of a massive eye in the perpetual storms that roar along the mountains. The furious clouds circle the peak like hungry wolves, waiting for the day when they will break free and collect—oh, it will be sweet—a debt fifty years in the owing.

A woman stands on a small outcropping of rock that looks almost like a huge plinth, tall and vaguely rectangular. Behind her, the stone has been ground into a flat, rectangular field, forty by one hundred feet. At the other end is another column of rock, similar to the one she stands on.

She is tall, taller than most men. Her gown is long and flowing, a midnight blue edged with silver. The bodice is the same shade, but the lines of silver—or perhaps it is iron—are vaguely reminiscent of the breastplates of old, when battles were fought with muscle and metal and blood. She is pale, almost grayish in the starlight. Her breath does not fog. Her arms and shoulders are bare, despite the fact that it is cold enough for a tub of water, flung into the air, to freeze solid before it contacts the ground.

Her face is old and young at the same time, the freshness of youth obvious while simultaneously giving the appearance of a wisdom that preceded life. Her hair is green and blue, streaked with silver; her lips are bluish, though not with cold. Her eyes…

It is said that, while shapes can be changed, one's eyes cannot, for they are the outward manifestation of one's true nature.

Her eyes are as black, entirely black, as the void between the worlds. It is difficult to hold her gaze for long, but occasionally a star seems to fall across the blackness.

"Lady?"

She smiles, then, teeth white and perfectly straight. She turns, takes a step off the short pillar. She leans forward as she slowly glides to the stone floor of the arena. Her bare feet are visible for an instant before being swallowed by the folds of her gown. It makes a gentle, swishing sound as she moves across the bare, smooth surface.

Two weeks ago, on the night of the half-moon, a star fell from the sky. It landed on the northern flank of the mountain, shattering stone, melting snow and igniting trees. It had cooled, by the time they found it.

"We are having problems, Lady."

The speaker is another woman, flanked by a red-eyed wolf, his salt-and-pepper pelt similar in color to the stones around him. He gives an involuntary shiver, looking at the tall woman's eyes.

An involuntary whine escapes from between his clenched jaws; his trainer puts a hand between his ears and scratches him affectionately.

Her hair and eyes are as black as obsidian. She is not tall, but holds herself with a certain grace—a dancer's, perhaps—that gives the illusion of height. She is dressed in thin, but clearly very warm coal-black skins and wears the snow-white pelt of a wintris around her shoulders. Her boots are heavy, fur-lined, but her hands and face are bare, and are already starting to blue in the cold.

"Ah yes." The tall woman speaks, her voice as rich and melodic as a choir. "Your forge is not hot enough."

"Exactly, nothing I have can even make it hot! I—"

"Patience, child."

Nocturna swallows. She is powerful, in more ways than one, but there is something about the other woman that makes her ill at ease.

"I know what fire you need."

"Then, Lady… what is it and how may I obtain it?"

She tells her.

"I… cannot!" Nocturna is breathless, terrified by her own open rebellion; she focuses on the method of obtaining the fire as her mind shuts down in the face of its source. "I have a duty… I cannot leave! There is no-one to take my place."

"Then we will wait, because it will eventually come to us." The woman smiles again, but her eyes do not.

Nocturna regains control of herself, hiding her relief. "How long will that take, Lady?"

She tells her.

"But… you have been waiting so long…"

"You are frightened by me, Nocturna," says the woman, smiling. "You want to complete the thing you have promised me, so that I may leave as soon as possible. Fear not, my dear… put the star-iron away somewhere safe. Continue with your life, for now. I will leave you until it is time."

She smiles once again, but her body has become transparent, and she melts away into the stone and starlight.

Nocturna gives an involuntary shudder as her mightyena runs toward the door in the rock, baying with terror.

The view recedes until the peak is one among many, once again. The continent is ringed by ocean, iron gray in the north and sparkling turquoise in the south. Abruptly, there is a distinction in the darkness—the velvet sky and black earth are separated by a curving band of gold. The sun rises slowly, illuminating the continent from east to west: Gaiien, greatest of regions.

The region is a twisted, mutated sort of circle of land, reaching from the cold, dark north to the tropical equator. The majority of its mass lies in the south, east and northeast. In the west and northwest, beyond the central sea, countless islands are to be found, and on the largest of them… the elites of the league.

It is tempting, but our attention must be turned to a more unremarkable portion of the land. We focus in on the grassy plains on the eastern quarter…

The grass is long and dry and wild, baked already by the early summer sun. The breeze rustles the stalks idly, dusty green or tawny-colored in the sunlight. The plain stretches far into the distance to the north and south. The mountains are visible to the west, the forests a dark green smudge beneath them. To the east are Port Littoral and the Seawoods.

A girl collapses into a clump of violets growing in an unused bulbull wallow, panting and sobbing. She draws her legs up to her chest and proceeds to cry with frustration and anger. A pokémon approaches. If he were older, it would be entirely appropriate to use words like 'sleek' or 'muscular' to describe his catlike body. As it is, one can only describe the sparkat as being gangly and adolescent. It is apparent, however, that the young pokémon will eventually evolve into a big raigar—his paws, eyes and ears seem enormous compared to the rest of his body.

He sits down beside the girl, whose sobs have lessened in frequency, and nudges her with his snout. She looks up, eyes red-rimmed and her face surrounded by the dusty tangle of her dark green hair. Her eyes are the bright yellow-orange of mango flesh; the unusual color puts the people she sometimes meets in mind of some predatory animal.

Her eyes are the source of her success with befriending the sparkat and her failure with other children. It is unjust, as she is a friendly, lively eight-year-old, but such is life.

((What's the matter?)) asks the sparkat. Sometimes he fancies the young human can actually understand him.

She sniffs and runs a slightly grimy hand down his furry back. Along the back of his neck are the beginnings of a violet mane, and the spots—the vestiges of his babyhood—in his tawny fur have almost faded. His claws and teeth contain poison, but he has been an agreeable playmate so far.

The pokémon was merely uttering a variety of sounds, growls and mews and chirps that should not have meant anything to the human girl. But somehow, some semblance of their meaning came across, enough for the girl to guess what he was asking. "I have to move. To the city. I have to live with my aunt and uncle…"

His tail twitches as he ponders this. His mother had moved her kittens once or twice; he sees nothing wrong with that, new places are always more fun. He does not understand "aunt" and "uncle"—there was only his mother and his littermates. Humans did not always broadcast their meanings very well, he had found; they seemed to rely too heavily on words.

It is obvious she is upset by having to move. Perhaps the thought of leaving him behind is making her distressed?

He is confused by this, does not understand the attachment. Others come and go; there will always be someone else.

He remembers seeing her running through the grasses for the first time, after leaving his mother and siblings for good. He had been warned about humans and their spherical prisons, but this one had looked young and harmless. Her eyes had put him in mind of his siblings, although his own eyes were beginning to develop flecks of violet. They had played together every day after that, the girl sometimes bringing him strange pieces of flesh; he brought her a mouse once, but she hadn't been hungry.

((Perhaps… perhaps I shall come to the city,)) he ventures.

She looks at him, wide-eyed. "But… you're a wild pokémon. Why would you want to come to the city?"

He is young, and the plains hold no surprises for him. Going to the city would be an adventure, and if the girl was… fond of him, there would be no danger from the red-and-white prisons his mother had warned him of. ((I will stay with you, if you want,)) he says.

The girl almost smiles, but starts, surprised, as she hears the voice on the wind.

"Moriko… Moriko?"

"My uncle…" she says. "Okay, but… I might… have to catch you. You know… put you in a pokéball."

He feels the fur on his tail puff outwards with apprehension, before willing himself to relax. Something about the human girl suggests that she is not a danger to him. It would be all right, and if something were to happen, it would be easy enough to escape.

((I will be fine,)) he says.

She throws her arms around his neck happily, surprising him, but she doesn't seem to be attacking so he relaxes. The girl stands up and walks out of the depression in the plains. He follows her.

"Uncle Max? Uncle Maaaaax," she calls.

The man hears her, and runs toward her. He comes to a stop, panting slightly, and runs a hand through his chestnut hair. "Moriko! We were so worried after you ran off… hell's bells, what is _that_?" he says, suddenly, noticing the sparkat.

"This is Sparky. He's my friend," she says brightly, looking up at her uncle.

'Sparky' winces. He wishes she could understand him properly so he could tell her his name.

"And he's coming with me," Moriko adds. "He said he wanted to."

Max opens and shuts his mouth a couple times before finding a few words. "Absolutely not."

"No!" responds the girl, immediately. She stamps her foot. "He's coming with me!"

Her uncle crouches down so he is level with his niece. She glares at him, her face dirty where she had wiped away tears with a grimy hand. He feels a slight chill, looking at her amber eyes. The gaze is dangerous, going straight to his hindbrain and calling up ancestral memories of eyes beyond the circle of firelight…

He dismisses the thoughts as pure fancy. This was an eight-year-old girl, for heaven's sake! "Moriko, sweetie, he's a wild pokémon. I'm sure he'd be happier here in the wild."

"He _said_ he wants to come with me," says Moriko, her eyes filling up with tears again as she begins to sense defeat.

Max sighs. Admittedly, it was horrible, with his brother and sister-in-law dying… abruptly he remembers his first pokémon, a meowth, back in Kanto. "Fine. But if he can't behave… clawing the drapes and so on… then I'll take him right back out here. All right?"

Moriko smiles suddenly, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. She looks at the sparkat, who nods. "Okay," she agrees.

Max smiles also and takes the child by her hand, the pokémon following close behind.

x.x.x.x.x

(04/09/05) This is the second version of this chapter. It's not that much different, but a few things have changed, namely my official rejection of pokémon speech being the pokémon's name repeated over and over.

I'm still not completely happy with this chapter being in present tense, but it seems sort of right… oh well.


	2. Chapter 1: Planning for the Future

Chapter 1: Planning for the Future

_"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: _'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' _And God granted it."_ – Voltaire

"MORIKO!"

"Uh-oh…"

She hastily placed the book she was reading spine-upward on the bed, in order to save the page. Its purple cover clashed merrily with the light green bedspread, but she took no notice as she ran out of her room and down the stairs. Forgetting how slick the carpet could be, she stumbled near the bottom, remaining upright but feeling as if someone had given her insides a violent shake.

"Moriko?"

"I'm _here_!" she said loudly, walking into the living room.

"Okay! I didn't know you were right there. No need to have an aneurysm!"

"Oh, shut up," she responded.

Twelve-year-old Moriko was not terribly different from her eight-year-old self. She was taller, starting to grow into her adult body, her skin paled from a winter spent indoors… but her eyes, an unsettling, almost fluorescent orange, were exactly the same.

Angela's dark blond hair was in pigtails, one of which she was winding around a finger idly. She glared at her cousin, gold-tinged green eyes furious under slightly inexpertly applied eyeshadow. She pointed a painted nail at the bathroom, the door slightly ajar.

"He's doing it _again_!"

Moriko walked over to the bathroom, somewhat bemused, before pushing the door open entirely. She sighed at once—she had thought it was something actually important.

A chubby, golden-furred pokémon the size of a german shepherd was perched on the toilet seat, looking up at her with a slightly guilty expression on his face. A single droplet of water rolled down one whisker and fell into the bowl with an extremely audible _plink_.

((The water in my bowl was warm,)) he explained.

"He says the water in his bowl was warm, Angela," said Moriko. That was an easy one, the meaning of the adolescent raigar's words immediately apparent.

"It's dis_gust_ing," said Angela, her hooped earrings tinkling.

"Max said it was alright as long as he doesn't start drinking out of it when it hasn't been flushed."

"Doesn't he realize that just because it's flushed, it doesn't mean it's clean? There's residue, you know!"

((You should've seen the puddles I'd drink out of when I was desperate,)) he commented.

"He said—"

"Yes, he's had worse, I heard him," Angela snapped. "Look, whatever, but if I catch him sleeping on my bed again there will be trouble."

"Whatever," said Moriko. She'd thought for a second or two that Angela was actually concerned about Sparky catching something, but she was just worried about getting sick herself. "Come on, Sparks," she said, walking towards the kitchen.

The raigar padded noiselessly at her heels as she crossed the tiled floor; she bent and picked up Sparky's water dish, pouring it out into the sink and refilling it. She set it down on the floor before going over and sitting down at the table. For a few minutes, the only sounds that could be heard were the rain and a muffled slurping as the raigar finished quenching his thirst.

Moriko glanced out one of the kitchen windows. The sky was an ugly sort of steel gray as the rain poured down. Now and then a forked brand of lightning would streak through the sky, accompanied eventually by a peal of thunder. Sparky hopped onto one of the chairs near the window, staring out into the rain with unblinking violet eyes.

The raigar was still an adolescent, as evidenced by his puppy fat, which lingered no matter how often he ran outside or had his diet modified. His pelt was a shiny golden yellow, which was proof enough to Moriko that he was healthy, and he'd eventually grow into himself. She sat down beside him and rubbed one of his pointed, purple-tufted ears, before letting her hand slide down his short, spiky violet mane. The end of his tail and the joints in his legs were tufted with the same color. The minute potential built up by the friction of her hand discharged abruptly with a small spark that she paid little heed, used to it. The electric and poison element pokémon's fur tended to be extremely good at collecting and storing small charges, but the electrical storm outside the house was probably overloading it somewhat.

On a finer day, Moriko would be outside playing at a park or walking along the beach with the raigar. Although Gaiien attracted the oddest sorts of people—the inner city was a rainbow of color, both in hair and clothing, on a fine day—her eyes still made people nervous, especially when combined with the unwavering stare seven years of school had developed. And, well… at the end of the day, she really wasn't too keen on people.

She despised the looks of pity her aunt and uncles' friends would give her when they found out she was the orphan. It'd been four years; she'd gotten over it, but people who'd just found out always acted like you'd just received the news. The kids at school were the opposite, but just as bad: they had the highly irritating habit of thinking up sensitive questions to ask, hoping they could make her cry… or something. She didn't give her classmates' motivation that much thought, as they probably didn't either.

Winter always annoyed her. She wasn't very sensitive to temperature, but the rain and wind and cold together made it a little difficult to have fun outside. She'd been reading before Angela had disturbed her, but that had lost its appeal. The Rotewalds' single television would surely be occupied by Angela—yes, a burst of sound from the living room confirmed that—and her aunt and uncle were not over-fond of computer or video games. Her uncle owned a computer, but it was in his office, which was kept locked at all times, and she was only allowed to use it for schoolwork anyway.

The sound of the rain _was_ oddly soothing. She stared out into the garden, the flowerbeds empty and the trees bare of leaves, and thought about starting on her homework…

She was restlessly pouring herself a glass of orange juice when she heard the front door open.

"Having fun, sweetness?" came her uncle's voice. He was talking to Angela, whose reply was unintelligible over the sound of the television. "Oh really? Well…where _is_ Moriko?"

"I'm right here," she called from the kitchen.

"Hey Mori," said her uncle, walking in. "Bored?"

"No, I'm actually having a wonderful time here, just sitting and staring at the rain," she answered sarcastically.

"Oh really? That's great! But if you _were_ bored, I was going to take you and Angie to get trainer's licenses."

Moriko almost performed a spit take, but managed to swallow her mouthful of juice. "T-trainer?" she managed to croak, after giving a few acidic coughs.

"Yup. Interested?"

She glanced down at her old shirt and pajama bottoms. "Let me put on some clothes," she said, placing her empty glass in the dishwasher before dashing upstairs.

x.x.x.x.x

Sparky watched the ground car light up, blue anti-gravity boosters humming to life and raising it about a foot and a half off the ground. It pulled out of the driveway and disappeared down the road.

_So…the girls are off to get trainer's licenses._ The raigar grinned to himself. He'd heard the humans talking—their speech was easy to understand, he always wondered why they consistently had trouble with his—and he knew that they'd be bringing home new pokémon, their starters. He imagined other pokémon might feel jealous about new additions to the household, but he didn't mind. In fact, he was pleased: he'd be able to roam the neighborhood more freely if Moriko and Angela were focused on their new charges.

He jumped to the ground from the chair he'd been sitting in, and proceeded to wash his ears. That attended to, he curled up in his pile of blankets near the washer and dryer, and fell asleep almost immediately.

He dreamt strange dreams, of the plains and thunder and blood on his claws…

x.x.x.x.x

"There's a new pokémon professor in town, a woman," explained Max, as they hummed along Port Littoral's quiet streets. The rain pattered against the metal and plexiglass of the ground car, extremely arrhythmic compared to the regularity of the wipers. "The old professor is packing up and heading back to Hoenn, so he wants to do one last starter distribution."

"He probably wants to make sure the new girl won't muck it up after he's gone," said Angela, with a laugh.

The Rotewalds' home was situated in what could be thought of as a suburban area, but the professor's laboratory was on the outskirts at the other side of the city. A large portion of the inhabitants were foreign professionals—Moriko's aunt and uncle fit into this category, and thus were able to afford the expensive vehicles for which the streets had even been paved. The roads were busiest in the morning and evening, when the professionals were going to work and the streets hummed perpetually with the noise of anti-gravity boosters. The rest of Port Littoral's citizens tended to stick to bicycles, or went on foot, but you did occasionally see one of the ancient hydrogen-cell or electric autos drifting along.

"Do you know what the starter pokémon are?" Moriko asked after a few moments spent in silence, the rain falling loudly and accompanied by bursts of thunder, the occupants of the ground car focused on the road or objects lining it.

Uncle Max reached into the seat beside him and handed a pamphlet to her without taking his eyes off the road.

"Hey, let me see!" Angela demanded, leaning over.

Moriko unfolded it, revealing color drawings of each of the starters, and grudgingly tilted it so her cousin could see.

There was a light green puppy on the far left, with a pair of large buds on its shoulders and a leaf for a tail. In the center was a bright orange calf with stubby yellow horns, a scattering of cream-colored spots and a flame-tipped tail. The last was a light blue kitten with dark blue stripes and what looked like orange gems set into its shoulders and forehead. The text underneath the drawings identified them as sylpup, volcalf and seakitt.

"They're amazing," breathed Moriko.

"Why don't they have the Kanto or Johto starters? They're a lot better," said Angela, annoyed.

"Just because they're from the same region as the greatest masters doesn't make them better," Moriko snapped.

"Don't put words in my mouth," Angela retorted. "I'd rather have them because they're more appealing than those three."

Max cleared his throat. "I think the starters have to be native to the region they're being given out in. But I suppose you could ask the professor when we get there."

Angela made a disapproving noise and went back to gazing out of the window beside her.

Moriko continued to stare at the pictures, entranced. Which one should she pick? The puppy looked like it was the most amiable of the three, but the calf looked pretty strong. Maybe she should pick the kitten, it was a feline, like Sparky, and they might get along best…

By the time they pulled up to the professor's laboratory, Moriko still couldn't pick a favorite, but her indecision was now mingled with a vague apprehension. She had no idea what exactly was waiting for her in the white building they had just parked in front of, the ground car's boosters quieting and lowering them gently to the pavement. They got out of the car, the slams of its doors sounding hollow and intrusive on the quiet street. Max opened an umbrella for himself before pushing open the wrought-iron gate. He held it for the two girls in their rain jackets before walking in himself.

A short driveway led up to the lab, with tall, bare trees following its path. The lab was covered in vines, or what would be vines when the warm weather returned, and there was a path running behind it. Max rang the doorbell after climbing the gray stone steps, followed closely by his daughter and niece.

Presently, the door opened, revealing an extremely harried looking woman in a lab coat, lavender tank top and denim cutoffs.

"Let me guess," she said, sounding close to exasperation. "More trainer-hopefuls?"

"Er…yes. Two," responded Max, slightly taken aback.

Moriko glanced at Angela, who was staring at the woman's feet with a bemused expression. Moriko looked down as well, and had to bite back a laugh: she was wearing rainbow-striped leg warmers.

"Alright, you can stash your wet things in here," she said briskly, pulling open a closet. Max folded up his umbrella and set it in a corner, while Moriko and Angela took off their dripping jackets, which the woman put on hangers and shoved unceremoniously into a closet.

"Follow me," she said wearily, her thick, wavy blond hair swishing as she turned. "This was supposed to be a research position, you know? I study wild machoke and persian… I _don't_ hand out gifts to brats—er, kids, rather. Old Larch loved it, but honestly, I didn't know I was supposed to fill his shoes…"

"Oh, really?" said Max, a little annoyed.

"Really," the woman responded, missing or ignoring Max's irritated tone. "And the kids! Making noise, annoying the specimens… I swore I'd never do it again after Hoenn… I'm Professor Adeline Willow, by the way."

"Uh… Maximilian Rotewald."

They had finished walking along the hallway leading from the foyer, ending up in a comfortably furnished room with a skylight. There were a few pictures on the walls and books on the oak shelves, but no knickknacks, which suggested that what _was_ there went with the building. The old professor's possessions were probably packed up somewhere, and the new professor, Willow, was likely waiting for a quiet day she could devote to unpacking.

A few other twelve-year-olds were sitting around, usually accompanied by a parent. They were chatting, bored; they must've been from the other side of the river, because Moriko and Angela didn't recognize any of them. Max apparently did, however, as he struck up a conversation with a man with flaming red hair.

Another man with graying hair and wearing a lab coat was moving from adult to adult, apparently introducing himself if all the handshakes were any indication.

((That's Professor Larch, if you're wondering,)) said a deep voice to Moriko's left. She and Angela were standing apart from the throng, and they both looked up in surprise.

A huge machamp nodded at them and waved with one of his four arms, two of which were engaged holding a tray of canned soft drinks, another holding a plate of sliced cheese and crackers. He walked into the sitting room and set the trays down on the table at the center.

"He has a tail," said Moriko.

"He's wearing pink boxer shorts. With _rabbits_ on them," said Angela, in apparent horror.

"I suppose they set off his mane quite nicely," said Moriko, feeling like she should be giggling insanely.

Lucius the machamp was not what they expected, but he never was.

After a couple of other twelve-year-olds arrived, Professor Larch led the entire group into a more scientifically oriented room. Along one white, gleaming wall was a row of pokéballs. The first three were marked with a leaf symbol, the middle three with a fire decal, and the last three with an image of a water droplet.

"Now, just in case you don't know the rules," said Prof. Larch, "I'll go over them. My lovely assistant"—he glanced at Prof. Willow, who scowled—"has a hat full of numbers. You will each draw a number from the hat, which will designate which pokéball you will receive. They are numbered one to nine, from left to right. Now, I know what usually happens is we draw the _order_ in which everyone gets to choose, but that way, usually only a few people are happy. This way, there's the possibility of _everyone_ being unhappy. Much more fair," he said brightly. His eyes flicked over the group. "I notice we only have seven hopefuls today, which means that afterwards, if you're really, really unhappy with the pokémon you've drawn, you can come and have a word with me afterwards and we might be able to switch."

Moriko smiled, although some of the other kids looked worried. They likely had their hearts set on a specific starter, whereas she was perfectly happy to leave it up to chance.

"After you get your pokémon, you will be issued a provisional trainer's license, which means you'll be able to train your starter and _one other_ pokémon, engage in battles and so on. You are not, however, permitted to purchase pokéballs or compete for badges. You'll have to wait a few years for that."

The Gaiien league was notoriously difficult, with its wildly varying terrain and widely spaced settlements. As a result, the long-standing rules stated that one had to be twelve years or older to get a starter, and sixteen before one could make any attempt at building a team and questing for badges. Special allowances were made for foreign trainers who had already collected a set of eight badges and competed in one of the leagues, but there weren't many younger than sixteen who were brave or foolish enough to try. The rule that a beginning trainer could own a maximum of two pokémon was to try to establish a certain amount of fairness: provisional trainers with rich relatives could acquire an entire team and more if gift-giving got out of hand.

The seven kids—three girls and four boys—lined up in front of Prof. Willow, who continued to look less than pleased about it. The machamp from earlier was sitting at the fold-out table, next to Prof. Larch, sipping bottled water and—no, he couldn't be—reading _The Once and Future King_. Moriko shook her head after staring for a moment: the machamp was a peculiarity that would have to be investigated later. Ahead of her, Angela drew a number out of the rather battered top hat.

"Your turn," said Professor Willow, idly. She had put on a blue and orange striped scarf at some point.

Moriko closed her eyes and stuck her hand in the hat, feeling around its velvety interior. She selected a square of paper and drew her hand out, before unfolding it.

Clearly printed on the white letter paper was the number five.

"You're lucky," Prof. Willow commented, seeing the number. "He's a sweet little volcalf."

Moriko turned and walked to the shelf that held the pokéballs. A few of them were missing, having already been claimed. The middle pokéball, fifth from either direction, had a sticker with a small flame on it. She grabbed the ball, and walked over to where Angela and her uncle were standing. Max was giving her and Angela's personal information, and Professor Larch was typing, evidently taking it down.

"That's great," he was saying as she approached. "We'll mail them to you when they're ready, it shouldn't take more than a week at the outside."

"Great," said Max, his good humor apparently returned.

"So are you girls happy with your pokémon?" asked Prof. Larch brightly.

Moriko nodded and Angela shrugged in response.

"You got what you wanted?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Angela, sounding bored.

"I liked all of them, to be honest," said Moriko. "And my only other pokémon is a raigar, so there wouldn't've been a type conflict, regardless of which one I got." One of the few things she knew about pokémon battling was that you wanted to make sure you had a diverse array of elements.

"A raigar, eh?" commented the professor. "You might want to show him or her to Professor Willow later. You're allowed to come back to the lab and get help with your starter and all that… she's here to research persian and machoke, you know."

Max cleared his throat. "Do you anticipate we'll have any problems with behavior? With the pokémon, I mean."

Professor Larch looked pensive. "Well, they're all bred pokémon… not wild-caught, so they're used to being around different pokémon and being handled by humans. I'd simply suggest that you not spoil them," he said, smiling, "as they can be trained into bad habits as well as good."

x.x.x.x.x

(04/09/05) Second version of this chapter. I tried to make Angela less annoying, because that's so very characteristic of your stereotypical rival, and I wanted to get away from that. I also slightly changed the bit with the raigar drinking out of the toilet, mostly because of me agreeing with Farla's review. ;D


	3. Chapter 2: Our Various Demons

Chapter 2: Our Various Demons

"_Everything a human being wants can be divided into four components: love, adventure, power and fame._" – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

…_she'd done it, she was world champion… she'd beaten every league in the world, no one could even match her skill… she was a legend, the greatest of them all…_

"Mor!"

She blinked, awakened from her reverie. The heat in here… the oxygen content of the air must've dropped…

"What?"

"I just asked you, Miss Rotewald… what is a demon pokémon?"

"A pokémon that is also a demon?" she said automatically, her mouth not really connected properly to her brain. There was a giggle or two from the class.

"Debatable," said Professor Hawthorn. "But in general, demon pokémon are pokémon that cannot be controlled by anyone… save by a Demon Master with certain innate powers." He flicked off the lights with his usual suggestion of irritation and switched on the aging projection machine at the front of the class.

Moriko yawned again. Professor Hawthorn… he wasn't at all like any of the other pokémon professors she'd heard of, most of whom were eccentric to varying degrees. Thorn was aging, severe and very gray… his hair, eyes and crisp suit all seemed to be the same color and oh damn he's talking again.

"Most prominent among the demon pokémon of legend was Aricaust, lord of flame and shadow," came Hawthorn's voice from the dimness near the blackboard. He pressed a button and a picture of an ancient-looking stone carving came into view. The picture was somewhat grainy, but depicted a sheeplike monster with huge curving ram's horns, vicious claws and vestigial wings, too small to actually be used, unless the carving was stylized or something. "Or, at least, he seems to be featured most often… other demon pokémon include—"

Moriko suddenly felt unpleasantly awake, her dreamy haze evaporating in a second. There was something… familiar, perhaps…

The bell rang then, abruptly. Prof. Hawthorn flicked the lights back on and switched off the projector.

The class sprang out of their seats, packing up books and rushing out of the heat.

Moriko swung her black backpack over one shoulder and walked out, running a hand through her spiky bangs.

"Reckon he's the only teacher who'd give a lesson on the last day?"

"'S likely, Russ," she replied, stifling a yawn. "It was so damn hot in there…"

"You should wear less clothing, maybe," said the young man walking beside her. He was wearing a gray T-shirt, khaki-colored shorts that reached just past his skinny knees, and leather sandals. She suspected that Russell wore muted colors because they clashed the least with his hair, which was a flaming red.

"You know I live to please you," Moriko commented dryly, making Russell roll his eyes. He was probably right, though: her heavy boots and dark green cargoes weren't exactly the most summer-oriented clothes, and the fact that they were in the midst of a heat wave didn't help either. School dress policy required her to keep her forest-pattern shirt closed over her black sport top… the collar was getting sweatier and sweatier.

"Oh well…one more class to go and then we're free forever."

"Kind of a scary thought," said Moriko, her body on autopilot, weaving through the cramped hallways, the odor of damp concrete not even registering due to its familiarity. They turned a corner and walked into their history class.

"Did you lot just come from pokémon theory?" asked Mr. Morgan. Unlike their previous class, history was taught by a normal teacher.

There was a murmur of assent from the class, most of whom were trying to position themselves as close as possible to the numerous electric fans scattered around the room. Mr. Morgan was short, surly and bearded, and if there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was the heat—geese being a close second. He looked mildly eccentric in a pair of lurid orange shorts, flip-flops and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

"Hawthorn always teaches on the last day, no idea why," Morgan continued. "Always does that bit about demon pokémon. Anyway, it's the last day of classes, so just talk… or review your notes, if you really want. It's a bit late for teaching, I think."

As the rest of the fifteen-student class engaged in conversation, Moriko pushed her desk over so it was touching Russell's.

Russell was, unfortunately, intrinsically geeky. He was tall, decent at sports and just about every subject at school, but something about him just screamed 'nerd'. He was scratching his stubble with one hand while drawing a charizard with the other. Moriko never wasted an opportunity to watch him draw, as he was quite good at it, but extremely shy and never allowed anyone to leaf through his sketchbook.

"So are you going out questing after exams?" he asked suddenly, not taking his eyes off the paper.

"Definitely." Moriko had her head resting on her crossed arms on the desk and was watching as the charizard's wing slowly developed.

Gaiien's school system had twelve grades, like every other region, but required children to begin a year earlier. As a result, most students were sixteen or seventeen by the time they graduated, but that meant that they could finish school before going out and pokémon training. It was especially tempting for the kids who turned sixteen in grade eleven to rush out immediately, but the vast majority waited until their grade twelve final exams were over.

Russell's birthday was in June, so he had suffered the aforementioned temptation and even more so because of the summer season; he was seventeen now. Moriko, on the other hand, was born in December. Well into her senior year by the time she was old enough, it wasn't as hard to wait a few months more.

"How's Sylvia?" asked Moriko.

"You saw her yesterday, but she's happy as always," answered Russell, smirking slightly and trying to get the fire pokémon's tail right. Although their pokémon stayed at Professor Willow's lab, they made a point of visiting every day before school; the other trainers were often there as well.

Russell had received his starter at the same time as she, but she hadn't known him until the summer before high school. She had a vague memory of him as being shorter, but just as twiggy. She hadn't been watching him then, but she later found out that he'd got the grass-type starter, sylpup, which had since evolved into cayvine.

"And Rufus?" Russell politely inquired.

"He says wins sometimes when he and Sparky fight," she said absently, telling him something he already knew. Her volcalf had evolved into volbine two years after she'd got him, which was normal for a pokémon not being extensively trained. The third stage was always the hardest, however, and the majority of pokémon with three-stage evolution lines would not reach their final form until they had matured enough. When, exactly, that occurred was different for every pokémon, whatever the leagues said, assigning numeric values to factors that could not truly be quantized.

"Sometimes?"

She grinned. "On occasion or rarely, more like, but he's getting bigger."

"Do you want him to evolve?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Moriko looked at him quizzically, shifting her attention from his drawing to his face.

Russell's eyes remained focused on the sketch. "Well… I've been reading up on borfang… you know, Sylvia's last stage. Apparently some go kind of… funny. Apparently… the dragon type was bred into the line… it's a mutation, when you get right down to it. And a lot of borfang have to be released or even"—he swallowed, adam's apple bouncing—"put down… they get vicious, not listening to their trainers…" He was tapping the eraser of his pencil agitatedly against the desk, the charizard's limbs still rough lines.

Moriko blinked, lost for words for a second or two. "Oh, come on, Russ… they say that about a lot of pokémon. When they hit third stage, they're fully adults, you know? And I bet a lot of them don't like getting bossed around by some kid whose voice just dropped an octave." She grinned slightly, seeing the corners of his mouth twitch a bit. She took his free hand, his right hand, and traced the path of the jagged scar on his palm with a finger. "Sylvia _loves_ you. Okay, worst case scenario: she flips out and loses it completely. But she would _never_ take it out on you."

Russell looked up, his gray eyes meeting her orange ones, and allowed himself a bit of a smile.

The moment was broken by a deafening crash that rattled the windows, followed almost instantaneously by the mildly unnerving _byu_ of many background electrical systems all shutting down at once. The silence left by the dead fans and other deceased appliances was replaced by the sound of hail bouncing off the roof, accompanied by pouring rain.

"Hot damn," commented Mr. Morgan, locating a flashlight and turning it on. The room was very dark, almost as dark as the sky outside. A fork of lightning illuminated the room, briefly. "It's always hottest before the storm, kids. Shame it had to break before the end of the day, though." He glanced outside. "Eh, the hail isn't that bad…you could probably make it home if you don't want to wait for it to stop."

x.x.x.x.x

"Okay, I admit that was kind of a bad idea."

"Yes. Yes it was."

Moriko gathered her hair and wrung it out, adding more water to the already sodden mat just inside her front door. "Well, at least we're inside, now. I think my favorite part was when Victoria stopped her car and laughed and waved, then sped off, spraying us with water from the street."

"I'm sure she was just being playful," said Russell, shrugging. He unzipped his backpack and was relieved to find everything dry… more or less.

"Is your sketchbook alright?"

He lifted it out. "Encased in plastic as always."

"Oh, good. You can stick your clothes in the dryer and wear a towel if you want. I'm going to go change," said Moriko, kicking off her boots. Outside, it was very warm and humid, but she was beginning to feel rather cold, wearing soaking wet clothes in the air-conditioned house.

"Angela is at Dave's, right?" asked Russell.

"Yeah, why? Oh… you don't want a repeat towel incident?"

"Precisely," he answered, reddening slightly.

Moriko shook her head. "It's best not to think about it."

She appeared downstairs again after a few minutes in a black T-shirt and obsidian green knee-length shorts. Her hair was starting to curl from having gotten wet. Moriko was about to walk back into the sitting room when a picture caught her eye. It wasn't new; in fact, it was almost four years old. It was a photograph of her and Angela, the day they got their starters. She'd seen it every day, as it was in the hallway leading to the front door, but she'd never really _looked_ at it. She picked up the framed photo.

She was sitting there, on the grass in the backyard, feeding Rufus some pokétreats. He'd been so sweet as a volcalf, with his huge orange eyes and his stubby horns and his little hooves… And there, there was Angela with her seakitt in her lap, looking genuinely happy. It was a rare occurrence to see Angela without an expression of irritation, thinly-veiled derision or feigned pleasure. She and the pokémon seemed to be off in their own little world…

She put down the picture. Rufus had always stayed at Professor Willow's lab, due to her aunt Augusta's phobia of fire pokémon, but after Angela's seakitt evolved into a suiline, he and Sparky fought almost constantly, annoying Augusta to the point of having them both moved to the lab as well. There was more room there, so they'd probably stop fighting, but in truth, her aunt wasn't terribly fond of pokémon: electrical burns and water everywhere had been her breaking point.

They went to Professor Willow's lab every day now, as did the other kids who'd participated in that and following years' starter distributions. Trainer-hopefuls were expected to _train_ their pokémon in the interval between getting a starter and getting a real license. The first gym, even if it was only level one, was reputed to be somewhat unforgiving.

Moriko sighed, and walked into the sitting room, immediately having to bite back a laugh.

Russell, wearing a towel around his waist and another around his shoulders, was quite a sight as always. He seemed… small, which was hard for someone over six feet to do. She'd seen him shirtless before, of course—how many times had they gone swimming?—but in just the towels, he seemed impossibly vulnerable. More like the skinny twelve-year-old she recalled glancing at.

He was reading yesterday's _Kanto Post_. If you wanted to find out about the really important things happening in this hemisphere, that was the paper to read. Unfortunately, it was a day late by the time it got all the way over to Gaiien, but it was better than nothing. If you had satellite TV, you could just watch the news channels from over there, but it was a little too expensive for her aunt and uncle's tastes.

She gave a loud wolf whistle, making him roll his eyes in disgust.

"What?" she said, flopping down on the chesterfield beside him. "You look good. You should show it off more."

"Yeah, right. You're such a perv', Mor."

"I'm just here to keep _you_ away from the little boys."

"You're sick. I would uphold my honor if I wasn't currently in possession of only a pair of towels in place of a garment."

"Yeah, that towel incident, eh? A real shame, but funny as hell."

"I'm going to have to talk to my therapist about you."

"I can see it now, she'll be like 'Has self-esteem beaten down by girls. Recommend shock-therapy treatment.'"

Russell snorted, then changed the subject. "How're you for exams?"

"Let's see… pokémon theory, no problem… history, should be alright… math, ohdamnI'mgonnafail… language arts, kill me now. Same old story." Pokémon theory was her best subject, even if she didn't know that much—anything—about some of its more obscure branches, like demon pokémon. She was good at history, since it managed to keep her interest for the most part by being pokémon related in one way or another. Language arts was usually a reading comprehension test, so that would be easy… Math however, _that_ gave her problems. Russell was brilliant at it, so with his tutelage she'd understand it well enough… Trigonometry, derivatives, limits… the figures and symbols on her page just seemed to stubbornly sit there, but Russ could bend them to his will.

"As always," Russell replied. He was what was referred to as an 'academic juggernaut'… the boy was good at _everything_. He reached over and turned her left hand over, rubbing the jagged scar slashing across her palm—oddly similar to his own—absent-mindedly with a thumb.

"You'll be fine."

x.x.x.x.x

"Professor Willow? Helloooo?" Moriko called into the lab.

"Huh. No answer," said Russell, now, of course, fully clothed.

"Shall we check around the back?"

"Let's."

They left their bicycles on the lawn in front of the lab as they walked through another wrought-iron gate into the rear areas.

The lab's 'backyard' was very large, opening up onto a paddock-like area that could probably fit a few hundred pokémon comfortably. There was a small lake in one of the far corners, but the majority of the activity was concentrated closer to the lab. Someone had inflated and filled a couple of large children's pools, then stuck beach umbrellas around them. It seemed like most of the lab's research specimens and other tenants were sitting in them.

In the pool nearest to them, two machamp, two machoke and a persian were sitting; in the further pool, there were three cayvine, a couple of sylpup and a very familiar raigar…

"Come to join our party, have you?" asked Professor Willow, looking up from the book she was reading. She was reclining on a lawn chair shaded by a large beach umbrella. She always looked slightly incomplete without her lab coat and odd accessories, but it was clearly too hot for them: she was making do with her familiar denim cutoffs and a tie-dyed tank top.

"Well, it certainly looks exciting," commented Moriko. All the pokémon looked nearly unconscious from the heat: it was a good idea to have them come out and sit in the cold water. There were various luridly hued boxer shorts strewn around, probably discarded just before their owners hopped into the kiddie pool. The machoke and machamp that wore them didn't technically need to, but the fact that they were wearing clothes indicated that they already had a trainer, as it were.

Lucius was there, his posterior arms draped limply over the edge of the pool, and his anterior arms holding a book—_Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, this time—and a glass of water. He gave them a wave with one of his hind arms, which she and Russell returned. Lucius was a big plains machamp, but he was short compared to the one beside him.

Quintus was an alpine machamp, approaching eight feet tall, with short crests and stone-colored hide. He didn't have much of a mane—he shaved it, the thick fur making him uncomfortably hot in Port Littoral's summer weather—but where you could see it, it was a sort of grayish purple. He looked like he was dozing, his two anterior arms dangling in the water and his single rear arm draped along the edge of the pool. As evidenced by his name, Quintus had only five arms, with only his second shoulder where the sixth should have been. Whether it was an accident or evolutionary defect that caused it, Moriko didn't know.

The 'beaks' that domestic machamp lines had developed were not to be found on the two males: they looked like larger machoke with an extra set of arms.

Beside Quintus was a female machoke who looked tiny in comparison, though not because she was female: the machop line showed very little sexual dimorphism. Anahita was an albino from the plains—but a slightly different breed than Lucius—pure white with slightly grayish areas where she would have had stripes. Her mane was just as long as the males' along her spine, but didn't have much of one on her chest.

The final machoke was Marius. While Lucius and Quintus were from Johto and Anahita from Hoenn, he was from the dark, coniferous forests to the northwest, a Gaiien native. His hide was an obsidian green, and his spiky mane a rich teal. His steel-colored claws were longer than the others', to allow for easier ascent into the trees.

"I thought that persian didn't care for water?" asked Russell, pointing at the catlike pokémon floating idly in the center of the pool.

"Domesticated persian don't really, but wild ones love it, especially when it's this bloody hot," answered Professor Willow. "Eris follows Quintus around everywhere, though, so who's to say?"

The persian had a pelt like a lynx, gray flecked with brown.

In the next pool, the grass-type wolves had become slightly more animated once they realized they had visitors.

"Sylvia!" called Russell, walking over. One of the cayvine jumped out of the pool, water running off her mossy fur, and bounded over to him. She got onto her hind legs and attempted to lick his ears, but he was still too tall. Sylvia contented herself by drooling all over his T-shirt while he scratched her neck. She was wagging her tail furiously, which was made up of a few blade-shaped leaves, edge down. Her slightly grassy mane had a few thorns in it, and the buds on her shoulders had opened, revealing what looked like long, thick pine needles.

The raigar, hearing the commotion, gracefully slunk out of the pool and loped toward her. Sparky was a mature raigar at nine or ten years old: lithe, sinewy and oozing nonchalance.

"How're things, Sparks?" asked Moriko, sitting down beside him and stroking his soft, golden fur and violet mane.

A few millivolts of potential discharged off a whisker. ((Not bad, not bad at all… this summer is ridiculously hot, though. Apparently the humidity makes it worse.)) He licked a paw reflectively. ((I'm not allowed to complain, though… Adeline said she'd make me get a labrador cut if I told her I was too warm again.))

"Cut how now?" asked Moriko. Ultimately, she was only getting the gist of what either of her pokémon said. If they used proper nouns she was at a complete loss.

((You know, shave my fur really short.))

"That doesn't sound _too_ bad," she replied.

The raigar looked shocked. ((Not too bad? It'd be awful, you'd be able to see my naughty bits!))

Moriko snorted. "Oh, come on…you're a pokémon, nobody cares."

((I care,)) he said stubbornly, twitching his tail irritably.

"Silly kitty…"

She suddenly heard the sound of pounding hooves. She stood and turned around in time to see a bull volbine skid to a stop just in front of her.

"Rufus!" she said delightedly. "How're you feeling? Cold?"

((Perhaps a bit chilly, yes,)) the fire pokémon replied. He was nearly five feet tall at the shoulder now, his bristly pelt a darker orange than it had been when he was a volcalf. His spots were the same: cream-colored, large and blotchy, while his horns had lengthened considerably. His tail had the familiar fire at the tip of it, and in place of a mane he had developed similar flames.

((So Sylvia says we're going to go out training soon. Is she right?)) Rufus asked excitedly, butting her in the stomach.

"Oof! Yeah, I think she is. We just have to write our exams, and barring future delays, I think we'll be off!"

((That's great! I can't wait to see the plains that… um, Sparky was telling us about. He still wants to tell you his real name, you know.)) The volbine looked around and added conspiratorially, ((I bet you'll find it out soon though.)) He winked, and headbutted her again.

x.x.x.x.x

(04/09/05) Yup, second version of this chapter too. I miss my angle brackets and equals signs… -sigh-…


	4. Chapter 3: Disappointment

Chapter 3: Disappointment

"_Young people do not learn only in school. Their surroundings and the times in which they live have as much influence on them as teachers._" - Valéry

"Oh god. I failed."

"I doubt it."

"I'm dead. I'm dead. I'mdeadI'mdeadIdiedI'mdead—"

"Moriko! I'm sure it's going to be perfectly okay," Russell said, giving her shoulder a gentle but firm shake.

"Hey Russ, Moriko! What did you think of the test?" said an unctuous voice slightly behind them.

Angela drew level with the walking pair, with her former boyfriend, David, at her side. Moriko's worried panic gave way immediately to suppressed anger.

"Should be alright," replied Russell. "I guess we won't know until the results come in."

Angela at sixteen was tall, curvy and extremely pretty. Her long, blond hair had been layered and highlighted recently, her straight, even teeth were dazzlingly white and her makeup was expertly and flawlessly applied. When she smiled at them, most males immediately felt compelled to go for a brisk run, or maybe a cold shower. She inclined her head at Russell as if trying to determine the validity of his statement, but there was something about her eyes that didn't exactly match up with her smile.

"Oh, don't be silly," she was saying. "I bet you aced it."

"What did you get for that second derivative question?" inquired David. The question was polite, but Moriko knew the seventeen-year-old was being his usual arrogant, competitive self, his gray eyes challenging. He was only about an inch or so taller than his girlfriend.

"It simplified down to cosecant x squared for me," replied Russell.

"Oh good," said Angela, tossing her head. "I was a little worried about it to be honest." David merely nodded.

"Oh damn," said Moriko in a tiny voice that only Russell heard.

"It's so _hot_ today," sighed Angela, adjusting her close-fitting white blouse to show a little more skin. "Aren't you too _warm_, Moriko?"

Moriko glanced down at her loose black cargo pants and mentally compared and contrasted them with Angela's tiny blue miniskirt.

"My calves are photophobic," she half-grunted, half-snarled.

Angela tittered nauseatingly. Men would strain their necks in an attempt to get an eyeful of her golden-brown legs.

"Photophobic?" said David with a derisive laugh. "We're not at school, sweetie, you don't have to pretend you have an amazing vocabulary."

"Light-fearing," supplied Russell as Moriko dealt with her sudden impulse to shatter kneecaps.

"Yes, obviously," David replied dismissively.

Angela and David were considered the smartest students in the year—they routinely achieved high-nineties for their per cent averages. They were beautiful, admired by their peers… and they shared an acute contempt of her, Moriko was sure, because she could see through their façades. In fact, Moriko thought, they were united in their arrogance, cold and malicious and calculating. This, of course, was the game: pretend to be as amicable as old friends, meanwhile hating each other with the fury of a thousand suns. First one to crack loses, and it was a game she was terrible at.

They finally reached the doors of the school and trotted down the steps to the sidewalk.

"I suppose this is where we part ways. See you later, Russ, Moriko," said Angela, waving a manicured hand.

Russell and David nodded, but Moriko was staring impatiently heavenward. The two pairs turned and walked off down the sidewalk in opposite directions.

"I—"

"—hate her so much?"

"…Yeah. You've heard this rant before…" said Moriko, deflating; it wasn't a question so much as it was a statement.

"She's really not even trying that hard to bother you, you're letting it happen yourself. You shouldn't let her get to you. She can control you if she knows how you react, y'know." He glanced at Moriko, for whom the rage had subsided and was giving way to embarrassment.

"Hey, do you what exam that was?" asked Russell, with the air of someone about to reveal an ornate gift.

"Mathematics, which I completely, brutally, utterly fa—"

"_No,_ I mean it was our last one."

Moriko opened her mouth to make a retort, then seemed to realize the implications of the statement. She seized his wrist and started running.

"Omigods, I haven't started getting any of my crap together! Come help me!"

Russell, of course, didn't have any choice.

In the end, neither of them was completely sure what exactly to bring, but after handing them their new silver and black trainer cards—far nicer than their old blue ones—Professor Willow promised to furnish them with a list if they returned the next day.

In the meantime, Moriko was sitting at the dinner table, picking at her rapidly cooling stir-fry as Angela gave an excessively detailed account of how easy the mathematics test was.

"So you're free for the summer, angel," said Augusta. "What are you planning on doing?"

"Pokémon training, of course," said Angela excitedly. "I know it can be a little dangerous in this region, but I honestly think I can handle it. Of course," she added, "if you really, really don't want me to go, I'll stay home."

"Of course we don't want you to go," said Max, grinning and patting Angela's hand. "But it's been something you've wanted to do ever since you were little, and I'm sure you'll be amazing at it."

"And if you find that it's not your thing, we'll come out and take you home, wherever you are," said Augusta, looking proud but a bit anxious.

"Who are you going with?" asked Max.

"I'd be traveling with Dave and Vic and Kenzie. We got our real trainers' licenses today," she added proudly.

"That's great, sweetie. Do you know what you need to bring with you? What supplies—"

"Of course, mum!" Angela said, impatiently. "Well, all right, not yet, but Professor Willow is giving us a list tomorrow."

Max cleared his throat. "And Moriko, what are you going to be doing for the summer? Pokémon training as well, I'm guessing."

Moriko looked up as the other three faces at the table fixed on her, looking politely interested, but she knew Angela and Augusta would be ready to critique anything she said, as always.

"Yeah, pretty much," she said nonchalantly.

"That's good, but I'll have to tell you right now that any funds for it are coming straight out of your own pocket," said Augusta brusquely, patting her mouth with a napkin.

"Yeah, like I totally didn't see that one coming," she muttered.

"What was that?"

"I said, that's fine," said Moriko.

"You should probably apply for a job here, just in case it doesn't work out," said Angela helpfully.

"Yeah, right," she said absently, rising and taking her dishes to the sink.

x.x.x.x.x

When Moriko and Russell obtained their equipment checklists the next day, they were shorter than she'd expected, but she was glad she had been saving her pocket, birthday and work money for the better part of four years.

The food and technology sections of the list were depressingly short. While other regions fairly loaded aspiring trainers down with the newest techno-gadgets, Gaiien had two to offer: the pokédex and a GPS module, the cost of the latter coming out of one's own pocket. The huge region was too massive to be mapped out properly, merely photographed via satellite, and maps made from those photographs tended to be seen as being a bit cumbersome for a roving trainer. Therefore, the geographical coordinates of towns and villages were recorded and loaded into the memory circuits of lightweight GPS modules, which were a little more convenient. The downside was that these modules cheerfully omitted relevant data on landforms and could be temperamental in cloudy weather. They were, however, invaluable in the desert, which tended to lack major landmarks and could usually be counted on to have sunny weather.

The food list was limited to imperishable goods like jerky, dried fruit, crackers, canned food and the hiker's favorite, peanut butter. Moriko recalled that most of the wandering trainers she'd seen had tended to be more toward the wiry side, and was beginning to suspect that too much exertion on a limited diet was the cause. Russell didn't seem to care, pushing their grocery cart along as she tossed cans (but placed bags more carefully) into the basket. He'd assumed a serene demeanor, which she suspected was an attempt to block out the fact that his last hot meal for a while would probably be tonight or tomorrow morning. Port Littoral had two supermarkets, and it seemed, luckily, that the other aspiring trainers were stocking up at the other one. Even so… there was something about supermarkets Moriko found she didn't care for. Quite apart from the lazy employees, illogical layout and the inevitability of getting that shopping cart with the one cockeyed wheel, there was a sense of softness or artificiality about the place. She'd tried telling Russell about it, but he'd responded, predictably, with a "dunno whatcher talkin'bout, Mor," and had gone back to flipping through a tabloid at the checkout.

As for clothing and equipment, Professor Willow recommended only the barest essentials. Take a sleeping bag, add a groundsheet, various food items and water, and your pack was already starting to get pretty heavy. The professor suggested a change of clothes, extra undergarments if wanted, and a waterproof jacket and pants. A tent was also suggested, its size dependent on whether or not you'd be sharing it with another person. For decency's sake, Russell and Moriko both got their own slightly cramped one-man tents that apparently unpacked and repacked themselves at the push of a button. They'd been delighted to see them working in the trainers' outfitter: here, at least, was something designed to make their lives a little easier.

The digital storage devices that were so common in other regions were ridiculously expensive in Gaiien, mostly due to a somewhat reduced demand and, of course, capitalism. Regardless, the devices were incredibly convenient: they would store anything nonliving and typically had huge memory capacities. New trainers in Gaiien had to be quite wealthy or have relatives in other regions to possess one. Moriko technically met both criteria, but her aunt would probably kiss Rufus before she spent more than was needed on her, and none of her surviving relatives likely gave her a thought. Russell's case was similar, but with his parents not terribly supportive of his venture rather than having a vindictive aunt.

To top it all off, they purchased a few super potions, full heals and a couple of revives each at the pokémart, as well as five pokéballs, five super balls and five ultra balls. The artificial stimulants designed to speed pokémon recovery processes would be useful, but the capture balls were, of course, the most valuable to their undertaking. It still felt a little unreal to finally have her trainer's license, Moriko reflected, to be standing in a pokémart, buying goods like a veteran trainer.

Things, of course, could only get better.

And they did.

"Moriko? Moriko! Look what Auntie Irene sent me!"

She closed the door as she walked in, setting the large, black and rather heavy hiking backpack filled with most of her purchases on the floor next to her, then proceeded to kick off her boots.

"Eh? What?" she called as she fumbled with one of the buckles on her boots.

Angela came racing towards her, waving a light blue device the size and shape of a short television remote control, with a screen attached to one end at an angle.

"It's a digital storage device! Now I don't have to carry all my stuff around! I'm so _happy_!" squealed Angela, before dashing back into the kitchen.

Moriko stood still for a moment, alone in the foyer, wearing the distinctive expression of someone trying to count to ten but having tremendous trouble getting there.

She picked up her backpack and went up the stairs to her room.

x.x.x.x.x

There was a hesitant tapping, like that of someone torn between making sure the person inside hears and making sure no one outside knows about it.

"Come in," she called, busy sorting through her clothes. She hadn't really realized how much green she actually owned…

"Um… Moriko?"

She turned. "Oh… hi, Uncle Max. What's up?"

He walked in, nudged the door closed with his foot. He had some sort of package underneath his arm.

"I… Angela's aunt… it… well… it wasn't fair, is what I'm trying to say." He looked miserable; his chestnut hair was spikier than usual, a sure sign he'd been running his hands through it in frustration.

"It's all right, Max… I don't really care. I'll get more exercise this way, anyway." She glanced at him, she could tell he wasn't convinced.

"Augusta, she… well, she always felt… you know, never mind." He took a deep breath. "This came for you a few minutes ago. Express post from the Torridian Islands. It's… it's from your mother's mother." He handed the package to her, stiffly… she had the sudden thought that he looked… guilty…

"Grandma?"

"She wanted to take you, after the… accident…" said Max, rambling a bit as she tore off the paper and started on the box underneath. "But the West, it doesn't really have much in the way of schools, and… you know how it is," he finished, a bit lamely.

"Max… it's all right. I'm sure you did your best," she said automatically, finally getting the box open after pulling out a pair of scissors.

There was a note on the top. She unfolded it and read:

_There's a lot of things I could probably tell you, a lot of things that you might find useful. But for now, I think one will suffice: Keep the sun off._

She tossed the note aside and tore through the crumpled-up paper inside. It was a hat. She'd been sent a hat. She picked it up.

It was wide-brimmed and a soft tawny color with a band of darker material around the middle that felt a bit like leather, but not quite. It had been properly supported once, but the brim was starting to go slightly floppy. And in some unexplainable way, she could feel…

But that, of course, was absurd.

"It's not fair," Max said, sounding even weaker than before.

_That Angela doesn't have to break her back or live off seeds and peanut butter? That all I get is an opportunity to protect the back of my neck from sunburn?_

"No," she said, jamming the hat onto her head, "nothing is, when you get down to it." As she stared at him, Maximillian was abruptly reminded of his sister-in-law, so much that he had to leave and escape the gaze he seemed to be burning under, like an ant under a magnifying glass.

x.x.x.x.x

(04/09/05) Yep… redone, because it sucked. Thanks to Farla for reviewing and thereby forcing me to make it better. n.n


	5. Chapter 4: The Seventh Trainer

Chapter 4: The Seventh Trainer

"_Love me, but never trust me; we are all dangerous in our own way._"

"Nice hat."

"Thanks."

She suppressed a yawn. Six-thirty in the morning was not a time she usually associated being awake with, but this was probably the beginning of a long line of sacrifices.

She set her black backpack down with a grunt beside Russell's dark red one and tossed the hat on top of it. She had to forcibly wrench her attention away from the rest of the backpacks in Professor Willow's sitting room—there were two others as large as hers and Russell's. The three others, a normal-sized backpack and two messenger bags, were undoubtedly the swag of trainers with digital storage devices.

"How was your evening?" asked Russell, flopping down onto one of the armchairs and tightening the laces on his hiking boots.

"Absolutely amazing. I went upstairs in disgust after my aunt started _crying_ over the fact that her baby was about to go out and be a pokémon trainer. It was gross. I felt like throwing up."

"Better than mine. My parents didn't even speak to me, I think they decided it would be best if they decided I was dead already. I'm hoping that way, it'll be a big happy surprise when I come home," said Russell dully.

She sat on the arm of the chair and ruffled his hair absently. "At least you'll have a happy ending, I guess."

He shrugged.

"So who's all here?"

"Angela and David, Victoria and Mackenzie, and… some other kid…" he scratched his stubble reflectively. "I don't think he went to our school."

"Was he at the starter distribution?"

"Mmm… you know, I can't really recall."

"Huh. And the Professor?"

"Making us breakfast with Lucius in the kitchen, I think. Eggs and bacon and pancakes and all that, I think."

"Oh good. Last hot meal for… what? A week?"

"Five days to Umber Village, I think. On average."

"Whee."

"So… the hat. What's the bet and who made it?"

"My grandmother, in the western islands, saw fit to send it to me. So now I'm wearing it."

"You're not supposed to actually wear gifts, you know." He reached up and removed it from her head, then fit it onto his own. The dull tawny color, amazingly, did not clash with his hair. He leaned over in the armchair, looking at himself in a highly ornate wall-mounted mirror.

"You know…" he said reflectively, adjusting the brim, "this is actually quite a nice hat. I mean, it's still woefully out of style, smells faintly of camphor and his generally hideous no matter what you do, but it's… nice." He stopped, slightly puzzled that he couldn't think of a better adjective.

"It'll keep the sun off," she replied, snatching it back and returning it to its original location with mock haughtiness.

"Easily, it's rather wider than you are. Not that that's hard."

x.x.x.x.x

Lucius inclined his head slightly, the better to hear the conflict unfolding in the next room.

"That was supposed to be a compliment, not a slur regarding your flat-chestedness! Ahh, it hurts and stings!"

He chuckled dryly, scraping a frying pan with his left arms whilst tending a pan of bacon with the other set.

"I think that'll be enough pancakes and bacon, Lu… just fry up another pan of eggs and I think we'll be set," said Professor Willow, her long, wavy blond hair tied back in a slightly clumsy bun. She shifted a number of pancakes to a serving platter.

((You'd better call them in, before this lot gets cold,)) said Lucius, wincing slightly as a drop of hot grease hit him in the chest.

"Good idea…can you manage by yourself?"

((Adeline, the day I can't cook by myself is the day you put me to bed with a shovel.)) He glanced over one of his ponderous shoulders at her and winked.

x.x.x.x.x

"Did you get a good look at that guy?"

"Which guy, now?" Moriko only had half her attention on Russell; the other half was devoted entirely to the rather syrupy mass of pancakes in front of her.

"The _guy_, the one we don't know. The seventh trainer."

"What about him?"

"Stop stuffing your face for a _second_ and just look at him," snapped Russell, stabbing his bacon with a fork.

She was taken aback by his uncharacteristic impatience and followed his directions without thinking.

The seventh trainer was wiry, probably a few inches shorter than Russell. He seemed to have already finished what little food he had taken; he was leaning back in his chair and studying the other trainers at the table. His hair was slightly spiky and a vivid cobalt blue, especially in contrast with his plain black T-shirt and pallid complexion. But his eyes, as far as she could tell, seemed to be a pale yellow-green, like a cat's.

"Okay, so he's got weird eyes," she said, turning back to Russell. "Anything else?"

"Let's think about this for a moment," he replied, some of his patience returned but with a bite of sarcasm. "Who do we know of who has blue hair and yellowish-green eyes?"

"Just tell me, Russ."

"The Gaiienese."

This pronouncement did not have the desired effect on her. "Aren't… we… Gaiienese?"

"My parents are both foreign, so I'm definitely not. I mean… the original Gaiienese. The people who were here before…" he paused. "Hasn't anyone ever _told_ you about them?"

"You know what my aunt and uncle are like, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"Case closed. Explain later, alright?"

A few minutes later, Professor Willow reappeared carrying a cardboard box. The seven trainers immediately fell silent at her arrival, an aura of hushed anticipation suffusing the air around the table.

"So, I hope you all enjoyed your free breakfast," began the Professor, smiling wryly.

"My compliments to the chef," called out Mackenzie from his seat next to Victoria, eliciting a few giggles.

Lucius looked up from the extremely rare steak he was daintily sectioning and nodded. Moriko at first noted darkly that Mackenzie's enthusiasm seemed to have lessened with the knowledge that a pokémon had cooked his eggs and bacon, before a slightly more reasonable internal voice suggested that it was probably because he had just been a bit flirtatious with someone outside of his species, instead of the twentysomething professor.

"I took the liberty of programming your information into your pokédexes ahead of time, I know you're all eager to get going… there were a bunch of different colors so I hope you like what you're about to get," Professor Willow added flatly. "As you probably know, they're basically a database of pokémon information and all that. They also have your trainer data programmed into them, so they're a second source of identification along with your trainer cards, which I gave to you all yesterday. And I've got a little something for you all…"

She extracted a clear plastic bag from a pocket and upended it, spilling its contents onto the tabletop. They resembled wristwatches with black straps and silver faces, but were rather slimmer.

"I ordered these directly from Kanto—Silph gave me a deal because I'm a pokémon professor." She grinned. "It's just because you're my first starter group going out training. Don't think I've gone and become fond of any of you, or anything…"

"Professor? What are they?" asked Angela politely, but although Moriko thought she could sense some impatience at the professor's familiar roundabout way of speaking.

"Translators. They will allow you to understand the speech of any pokémon, even wild ones or another trainer's, as long as you have it touching your body. They run off body heat, but don't ask me how they work beyond that. It's a complicated problem, pokémon speech…" she trailed off. "Anyway, come up and grab the pokédex with your name on it and your translator."

There was a small rush to the end of the table opposite Moriko and Russell, which they avoided by approaching it last. Moriko grabbed a translator and strapped it to her left wrist, above her watch, before extracting the pokédex labeled with a piece of masking tape with her name on it from the box. It was a metallic forest green with a silver pokéball logo on the back. Russell's was similar, but metallic red and gold—a more classic look, since they used to make pokédexes in only one color, red.

"Your pokémon are in the back fields, you should pick them up as you leave," Professor Willow was saying.

"Shall we?" inquired Russell, strapping his own translator to his wrist.

"Let's," answered Moriko, tucking her pokédex into a pocket, right next to her trainer's card.

They retreated to the sitting room and grabbed their backpacks. The other trainers seemed to have had the same idea and were retrieving their bags as well. The blue-haired boy was exiting the room as they walked in, carrying a pack that looked heavier than he was. Angela and Victoria owned the messenger bags from before, and were amazingly wearing sturdy pants and hiking boots. Admittedly, they were also wearing extremely revealing sport tops, but Moriko had half-expected them to show up in their familiar miniskirt and heels ensemble. What they were currently garbed in was not so far off from her own black sport top, rather baggy obsidian green cargoes and usual black all-terrain boots. Fingerless trainer's gloves were not worth mentioning as they seemed to be the standard: all seven trainers were wearing them, albeit in varying shades. Mackenzie was looking slightly put out as he hoisted his own large pack onto his back; he was the only one of his group who did not have a digital storage device, but admittedly, his bag looked lighter than, say, hers or Russell's did. Possibly Victoria was carrying some things for him on her storage device.

Moriko and Russell eventually made it to the rear of the lab and stepped out into the cool, morning air. It was going to be a hot day, but the sun had not yet lanced through the mist that had rolled in off the sea during the night. There was an assortment of pokémon in the yard, all waiting expectantly for their trainers. Closest to the lab's back door were three cayvine (Russell's, Victoria's and David's), two volbine (Moriko's and Mackenzie's) and a suiline. Moriko studied the water element feline for a moment; this one was probably Angela's, judging by the detached expression on its lion-like face. Its light blue fur had a slightly scaly, iridescent texture, as did the orange gems set into its shoulders and forehead. Its distinctive tail was half as long again as the rest of it, although it was hard to tell as it constantly wove and looped around its body, tipped with a small crystalline orange fin. Moriko shook her head, feeling slightly guilty that she would not have minded receiving a seakitt as her starter…

There were a number of other pokémon besides the starters: Moriko's raigar, of course, a vulpix that she recalled as belonging to Victoria, David's murkrow and a large ursaring.

"Oi! My lot!" called Moriko. Rufus was jerked out of his doze and got up immediately, but Sparky made a large production of getting up and stretching before walking over to her.

"Moriko! Finally! Are we going to leave now?" asked Rufus, as she scratched the bases of his horns.

Moriko savored the fact that she'd understood everything he said before answering. "You bet. Are you two up for a walk, or shall I keep you in your pokéballs unless I need you?"

"Pokéballs?" scoffed the raigar. "We're finally leaving this dreary hellhole. Keeping us cooped up should be the last thing from your mind."

Moriko grinned. "As you wish. So now that I can finally understand what you're saying, what's your name, raigar?"

He grinned, exposing his slightly purple-tinged fangs. "Adeline finally handed out those translators, then? All right… the name my mother gave me is Tarahnoch."

"Tarahnoch…" said Moriko. "I like it… a bit of a mouthful, though. Do you have a birth name, Rufus?"

The bull-like pokémon snorted. "If I did, I don't remember it. Don't worry—I prefer Rufus anyway."

"A rose by any other name and all that, I guess," said Moriko, shrugging. She shifted the weight of her backpack.

"Are you ready to go, Mor?" asked Russell, walking up and flanked by Sylvia.

"Yeah, if we haven't got any other tasks pending, I think we should haul some serious ar—"

"Uh… hey, you two!" came a slightly hesitant voice. Moriko turned.

It was the seventh trainer, accompanied by the ursaring and, impossibly, a tibyss, suiline's evolved form. The tibyss was huge, easily six feet at the shoulder. Her body was covered in short midnight blue fur, and her paws were large and apparently webbed. A line of round orange gems ran along both her sides, starting dime-sized at her neck, growing to about two inches in diameter at the shoulder and shrinking again to the base of the tail. Spines joined by orange webbing grew along her spine, shoulders and at her elbows. The tail itself was thick and somewhat otter-like, bearing little resemblance to the thin, whippy appendage she had undoubtedly possessed as a suiline.

"Hello," said Russell politely.

"Holy crap. Your starter is third-form already?" said Moriko, by way of greeting.

"Er…yeah. That's not a common occurrence, I gather?" replied the young man, slipping his dark blue-gloved hands into the pockets of his khaki cargoes.

"Not really," said Russell. "Then again, we weren't really training too intensively. Where'd you get your ursaring?" he asked, as Moriko was looking up tibyss's pokédex entry.

"Björn? I got him as a teddiursa from my dad when he and my mom divorced." He shrugged.

"Huh. Cool. Russell Ignatius," he said, extending a hand.

"Matthew Sleet," he replied, taking it. "And you?" he asked, turning to Moriko.

"Moriko Rotewald," she answered, shaking his hand firmly.

"Anyway… I was planning to just travel by myself, but Maia here"—the tibyss inclined her ponderous head—"being a force of common sense, insisted that I not travel alone, and I was wondering if you've got room for a third person on your epic adventure."

Moriko and Russell glanced at each other. "Yeah, I think so," said Moriko.

"Just as long as you don't hog the camera, of course," Russell added wryly.

"As you wish," Matthew said, grinning. "So what's the quickest route out of the city?"

"If we cut across the lab's pastures, we'll come out onto highway one, which we can follow to Umber Village," said Russell. "It'll turn to gravel as soon as we're out of the city, of course, but at least we won't get lost."

"At least _someone's_ done their homework," muttered Moriko.

"You'd be lost without me, kid," Russell whispered back.

Matthew raised an eyebrow but otherwise ignored the exchange, before recalling his ursaring. He shrugged, saying, "Björn doesn't really care for long walks."

"All right, shall we head off?"

"Let's," answered Russell and Matthew together. They glanced at each other warily as Moriko burst into laughter at their expressions.

x.x.x.x.x

(04/09/05) Redone very slightly, this chapter was not that much different than the original.


	6. Chapter 5: Harder Than It Looks

Chapter 5: Harder Than It Looks

"_The weak in courage is strong in cunning._" - William Blake

"So where're you from, Matt?"

"Littoral, like you guys, but I was home-schooled."

"And in your free time you trained your pokémon, am I right?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

The shade offered by the lush deciduous trees of the seawood hadn't lasted long, and the sun was now high in the sky and extremely hot. Even now, the seawood was merely a dark smudge on the horizon, and all around them, to the north, south and west, were the endless tawny plains, grasses moving delicately in the wind. There was the occasional farm, forming neat green squares against the beige landscape, but those grew farther and farther apart as they walked. The sky overhead was blue and cloudless, save for a few errant wisps. The heat would have been unbearable if not for the breeze, whispering through the long grass and swirling into dust devils on the gravel road to their left.

The pokémon had been recalled into their pokéballs, their energy better off conserved. They hadn't seen much in the way of wild pokémon, just the occasional clawbit dashing across the road. Moriko had looked it up on her pokédex after they saw their first one: it was essentially a rabbit with a dull brown pelt and crimson ears. Its distinguishing features, however, were the long, retractable claws in its forepaws. Despite this, the normal-type was essentially the rattata or zigzagoon of Gaiien, and was ignored by the three trainers somewhat arrogantly, but it was their first day and they were hopeful they'd find some more interesting options.

They walked along in the ditch to the side of the road, hot, sweaty and increasingly irritable. Their earlier, rationed meal of peanut butter on bagels hadn't done much to improve Russell and Matthew's moods, although Moriko, with her smaller appetite, hadn't minded as much.

Once or twice, a ground car had roared past, the gravel road not meaning much to its anti-gravity boosters. It hadn't helped when Russell calculated that it was probably traveling at forty times their current speed.

"It's about two hundred and fifty kilometers to Umber Village. It takes about an hour and forty-five minutes to get there by ground car, but it's going to take us five days… wild, isn't it?"

"Russ?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Shut up."

By nine-thirty that night, they'd walked for about twelve hours in total and had covered approximately forty kilometers. The three trainers set up camp near the banks of the Avara River, a wide and sluggish beast heavy with the silt of the plains and a far cry from Port Littoral's own Varpun River, which flowed fast and clear towards the ocean. Nevertheless, it was wonderful to dip tired and hot feet in and the work of a moment for Maia to refill their water bottles, as she'd been doing all day. The water type might use gallons of water for one attack, so it was easy for her to provide a few liters of pure water for her thirsty trainer and his new friends.

The three released their pokémon: Rufus to graze and Sylvia, Björn and Tarahn to hunt. Maia disappeared into the river and emerged a short time later with a struggling silteel in her jaws, a mud-colored eel-like pokémon that could reach lengths of up to six feet. This one was only about two feet long, its only color found in its sky-blue fins and venomously yellow eyes. It snapped its jaws, filled with jagged teeth, as it writhed and squirmed, trying to break the tibyss's hold on it. Like all water pokémon, the water and ground type could breathe out of the water. Maia allowed the trainers to examine it before severing its head and proceeding to eat it.

Moriko's stomach had done an astounding series of acrobatics, by the feel of it, at this particular sight. She had been forced to turn away and will herself not to throw up, and suffered acute embarrassment besides. Neither Matthew nor Russell had come close to vomiting, as far as she could tell. She hated seeing signs of weakness in herself.

To deal with it, she'd gone wading in the river. It was deliciously cool, especially in the still-warm air of twilight, and the sand at the bottom soothed her hiking-irritated feet. Her boots, cargoes and hat were lying near the bank. She felt a vague apprehension about leaving them there, but was fairly certain that no nighttime thief was going to jump out of the trees and steal her pants.

She shivered slightly in the breeze: it was a bit chilly in just her boxers, sport top and an open shirt.

"Moriko?"

She turned in the water, sighing. "Hi Russ."

She watched him as he removed his hiking boots and socks, but he left his red cargo shorts on, judging the water low enough to accommodate them, especially with his long legs.

"Wow, this sand is _nice_," he commented, walking out toward her. "Huh. You're only in your boxers. Should I be embarrassed?"

"I've seen you naked, so no, I don't think so," replied Moriko with a bit of a grin. She pushed a strand of hair, dislodged by the breeze, out of her face.

Russell grinned sardonically. "You're not going to let me forget that, are you?"

"Never."

"Why _do_ you wear boxers anyway? They're not exactly feminine apparel," he asked, as they started pacing up and down the small stretch of bank near the bridge.

"I couldn't tell you. Maybe they're more comfortable than my other options, maybe I just do it to be as masculine as possible."

"Huh. Interesting. What do you do about feminine issues, then?" It was hard to tell in the low light, but she fancied he reddened slightly.

"I don't. Hormone injections. _So_ convenient."

"I thought so. Don't mind me, I'm just trying to pretend I didn't block eleventh-grade biology out of my mind."

"That was the class where everyone couldn't stop giggling, right?"

"Yup."

"Yeah, I think I blocked that one out, too." She bent down and picked up a rock from under the water, which she tossed away after determining it wasn't especially interesting. "So what's our new friend up to?"

"Trying to get a fire going without Rufus's help. It was rather amusing, but I wanted to make sure you hadn't been drowned or anything."

"Oh good, I feel special. Tell me about the Gaiienese."

Russell ran a hand through his slightly spiky hair. "Well, I was talking to Matt and his parents are both from Johto, so I don't think he's Gaiienese…"

"Tell me anyway."

"Alright… back in the day, you know, like fifty years ago, apparently the original human inhabitants of the region had yellowish-green eyes and blue hair, and they didn't take kindly to settlers. So they brought some enforcers up from Kanto to sort them out… they were raiding farms and stuff. But the Gaiienese fought back and it ended up with a lot of them getting killed. This was years and years back, but they say that the ones that're left are pretty dangerous. Matt's a nice kid though, so even if he was Gaiienese I'd say he's all right."

"Huh…" Moriko wasn't as sure about the 'nice' part—Matthew had been polite so far, although earlier he'd brusquely informed her that the place she was setting up her tent was less than ideal.

"Oh yeah, so do you want to go back to the camp soon?"

"Why?"

"I've got chocolate and I want to eat it before it melts again in the heat."

"Russ, I love you."

"I know."

When they rejoined Matt at their circle of tents, there was a small fire blazing merrily in a small pit in the earth that Björn had made with a few sweeps of a paw.

"So you got it started?" asked Russell, sitting down on the short grass a few feet away from the fire. There was a circle of bare earth around the campfire, a necessary precaution as fires could quickly go out of control on the plains. Moriko dropped her boots and flopped to the ground nearer to her tent.

"Yeah, I found my flint, finally." He held up a chunk of grayish rock before returning it to a pocket. "Wasn't too hard after that," he said, with a bit of a grin.

"Do you go camping a lot, Matt? You seem to know what you're doing," said Moriko, trying to massage her feet.

"Yeah, I used to go with Björn when he was a teddiursa and Maia when she was a seakitt… but I was going by myself more recently, just to make sure it wouldn't be any different." He paused, scratching his neck. "It wasn't, aside from the loneliness."

"Where'd you go to camp?"

"The seawoods, usually… up and down the coast. You've seen what the plains are like. Deadly boring."

"You've got that right," said Moriko, glancing to her right, where Rufus's silhouette was framed against the residual glow of the already set sun. Maia had disappeared into the river again, while the other pokémon hadn't returned from hunting, and she wondered if there was even anything out there that could sustain the three large pokémon.

"So were you born here, in Gaiien?" Matt was asking.

"Yeah, but my parents are foreign," said Russell.

Moriko just nodded. "So why did you opt for home-school?"

Matthew smiled, a bit ruefully. "It didn't do much for my social development, did it? Nah, I liked doing it over the internet and all that. My dream was always to be a pokémon trainer anyway. And if that doesn't work out, well, there's always jobs to be had in the Wild."

She nodded politely. It wasn't immediately obvious, but there was some definite muscle on the young man's lanky frame. She suspected he'd be able to do almost any of the physically demanding but well-paid jobs out in Gaiien's interior.

"Are you an only child?" asked Russell, removing his own boots and shaking them out. A few tiny rocks fell out.

"Yeah. And you guys?"

Russell nodded. Moriko shrugged. "Yeah, same here," she said. "But I lived with my first cousin." She looked pensive for a moment. "Wait, speaking of Angela… where do you think the others got to? Would they have taken an alternate route?"

"That's true, we didn't see any of those other trainers at all and we were probably only a few minutes ahead of them," said Matthew.

"I can see them hitchhiking, actually," said Russell, sighing. Moriko felt a surge of resentment; if that was true then the other trainers would be five days ahead of them.

"Well, nothing we can do about it," said Matthew lightly. "Hopefully they just decided to cut across a field or two and got lost."

The thought of Angela and her assorted cohorts wandering through the plains, lost and confused, cheered Moriko considerably. She dwelled on this until Russell handed her a large piece of slightly sticky milk chocolate.

"Omigod Russ, what would I do without you?" she said, before taking a large bite. Matthew seemed to be lost in some sort of sweetened daze.

"It's amazing how good a bunch of melted and re-solidified sugar and cocoa extract can taste," observed Russell, sagely.

Their bodies were apparently so glucose-deprived that the chocolate had no effect on their energy levels; normally a boost of caffeine and sugar would have made them a bit hyper, but the three remained as fatigued as ever.

"Well, boys, it's nearly ten at night and I've been up since six… I sleep now," said Moriko, suppressing a yawn.

"Bed… er, sleeping bag sounds nice right about now," agreed Russell, stretching. "What about the pokémon?"

"Being in a pokéball messes up their body-clocks," said Matt. "They'll be expending energy for a few more hours, but they'll be back in the morning and we'll just have to hope we won't need them for a battle right away."

"Oh good. Night-night, kids."

x.x.x.x.x

The next few days passed as uneventfully as the first. They saw very few pokémon apart from the common clawbit; there was the occasional murkrow sitting on the remnants of a fence post or a lone bulbull, a grass and normal type very similar to a male bison, differing mainly in that it had a dull green pelt and short leaves growing along its spine. These slightly rarer pokémon had a frustrating tendency to flee if engaged in battle, so they were good for neither capture nor battle experience.

By the time Moriko, Russell and Matthew reached Umber Village, it was late on the fifth day of travel. The only blessing had been that their bags had grown lighter as they ate the food they'd brought. The three had three things in mind now: hot food, a shower and sleep in an actual bed. They'd worry about their respective gym battles _later_.

Naturally, when they finally reached the village's pokémon center—which also seemed to serve as an inn and a hospital for humans—it was rather less restive than they might have preferred.

Moriko led the way, walking through the center's double glass doors into the lobby. Ahead was a small counter at which an attendant was sitting; shortly behind her was the familiar machine that instantly replenished the energy of any pokémon in its pokéball. A door close to the counter led to the back rooms where they treated more serious cases. To the left was a small cafeteria, its lights dimmed due to the late hour, but you could pick up a cup of coffee if needed. There was also a flight of stairs, slightly obscured by a potted plant, which presumably led to the rooms upstairs, free to stay in for a night for any trainer. There was a small lounge area to the right, a number of chairs and other furniture arranged around the fireplace in one wall. And sitting in said chairs were—_I totally saw this coming_, thought Moriko—the four other trainers, Angela, David, Victoria and Mackenzie.

"Look who it is," said Mackenzie, "Moriko and Russell!"

"What took you guys?" asked Victoria, grinning. Her magenta hair was nicely styled, thanks to the less essential products she was able to take with her.

"How long have you lot been here?" Moriko almost snapped.

Angela leaned closer to David, whom she was sitting beside on the short chesterfield, and smiled, as languorous as a cat. "Since this morning."

"Huh. Did you walk the whole way?" asked Russell calmly. _He's much better at this social game than I_, she thought sourly.

"No, we walked to Steppe Town and my uncle drove us the rest of the way," said Victoria.

Moriko felt her mouth twitch a bit. "You didn't get lost along the way, did you?"

Angela and Mackenzie rolled their eyes, while Victoria gave a derisive titter.

"No, we actually planned to do that," said David with a bit of a sneer. "Sorry if that's a foreign concept."

Moriko retained her suspicions, but the four were nevertheless a half-day ahead of them.

"Challenged the gym leader yet?" Matthew inquired politely.

"We sure did," said Victoria. "She's a little thick in the midsection, but nice enough."

"We're heading out of here in the morning," Angela said. "Got to keep moving."

"That," said Moriko, "is the best thing you've said so far." She turned on her heel and marched over to the attendant's counter. It took her a few seconds to obtain a key, and with that she was gone, up the stairs to her room.

"Bit of a temper on that one," commented Mackenzie.

"Why do you put up with her, anyway, Russ?" asked Victoria, twirling a lock of her nearly fluorescent hair around a finger.

Russell was silent for a moment, expression unreadable. Finally, he shrugged. "She doesn't laugh at my drawings," he said quietly, before retracing Moriko's steps.

x.x.x.x.x

(04/09/05) Redone! Not much changed aside from some of the dialogue, as I'm trying to make everyone adhere to their characters better and seem a little more real. Enjoy.


	7. Chapter 6: First Blood

Chapter 6: First Blood

"_The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception._" - Nietzsche

"So I wonder what type of pokémon this gym leader uses."

"You mean you don't _know_?"

Moriko had slept like a log—she'd fallen asleep as soon as she hit the pillow. She suspected the two males had experienced similarly uneventful nights, as the slight dark circles underneath their eyes were gone, and they'd actually made the effort to shave. The three of them were sitting and eating breakfast around one of the small tables in the cafeteria, wearing only their boxers, boots and a spare T-shirt apiece while the clothes they'd worn for five days straight were laundered thoroughly. Moriko wasn't above wearing 'dirty' clothes, but even the guys agreed that after five days, things needed a wash.

She looked up from her bacon and eggs at Matt, who appeared mildly incredulous. She would have slept in today, if it weren't for the blue-haired trainer. He'd pounded on her door at seven AM, only an hour later than their wake-up time while traveling. Matt had kept them consistent then too. She wondered, briefly, how he'd found out her room number, as she'd departed abruptly the previous evening. She surmised he'd probably asked the front desk.

"I thought you were supposed to find out the type theme when you walked in, and not sooner?"

"Are you kidding? You could find out the type focused on in every gym in the region after five minutes on the Internet. Don't tell me you _think_ the gym type should be a secret until you're on their doorstep." His expression was almost contemptuous.

Moriko reddened slightly. "I never said that, I—"

"Why don't you tell us what the gym type is?" broke in Russell.

"Ground. It's a ground-type gym," answered Matt.

"Well, damn," commented Moriko, her fork clattering on her empty plate.

"Well, damn what?" asked Matt, an eyebrow raised.

"_You_ don't have anything to worry about, then, and neither do you," she snapped, glancing at Russell. "Meanwhile, I have two pokémon weak to ground-type attacks, one of them with a double weakness. Freaking hell."

"Type match-ups aren't everything," said Matt lightly, getting up and putting his plate on a small trolley, before walking out. There were a few other plates and assorted utensils on it already, from the couple of other trainers who were also in town.

"Bastard know-it-all," she muttered, drumming her fingers irritably on the table.

"He's smarter than we thought," commented Russell, leisurely starting on a blueberry muffin.

"More arrogant, too, have you noticed?" she snapped, sarcastically, taking her own plate to the trolley and retrieving her muffin as she walked out of the cafeteria.

Russell sighed. "Almost like an impatient teacher."

x.x.x.x.x

"So what's your strategy, Mor?"

The three trainers trotted down Umber Village's one proper street, any earlier conflict forgotten or dismissed. The settlement was essentially a pokémon center, a gym, a couple of general stores and some assorted houses.

"I figure I'll just go all out with Rufus and hope the gym leader's pokémon don't know strong ground- or rock-type attacks."

Matt nodded. "It's a level one gym, so it could happen. But the leader's probably tougher than a first-level opponent in, say, Kanto or Johto. They know we've been training."

The gym itself was about a city block away from the pokécenter, and looked like a brown bowl balanced on a circular brick wall. It was the largest building in town, and it had to be, to accommodate a regulation-size battle arena. There was a spray-painted pokéball symbol above the door: two separated, curved lines in a circular arrangement—probably one of the most universal symbols in the world.

Moriko was unsure of whether or not to knock on the curved door set into the dome: upon closer inspection the gym was starting to look like a bomb shelter. Then she noticed that the other houses in town had similar reinforcements on their foundations.

"Hey, why are all the buildings built so strongly around here?"

"This is tornado country," said Matt as he walked up and opened the door. "The residents probably want to avoid as much property loss as possible." He held it open as they walked into the gym. It seemed larger from the inside, the battle arena surrounded with a few slightly sad rows of bleachers.

"We've been lucky. Hopefully this good weather will hold out as long as possible," added Matt, as the door slammed behind him.

Moriko walked forward, toward the battle arena. It wasn't a flat stone or concrete surface like she'd thought, but was actually what appeared to be a tank filled with smoothed-down sand.

Abruptly, one of the doors at the other end of the dome opened and a large gray pokémon emerged with the sound of rock grinding against rock. She recognized it as a rhydon.

"More bloody trainers," it said, not bothering to lower its voice. It turned and stomped off in the direction it came.

"What the hell?" said Moriko.

"Was that a rhydon?" asked Russell, walking up to her.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"We'll probably see the gym leader now," said Matt, joining them.

As Matthew predicted, a woman appeared shortly after, the rhydon trailing along behind, apparently bored.

"More trainers! There were four of them here yesterday. It never rains but it pours, as I always say!" she walked along the side of the arena and shook each of their hands in turn. "I'm Tierra Kerr."

"Moriko."

"Russell."

"Matthew."

She was slightly shorter than Moriko, but probably weighed forty pounds more than her. Tierra was stocky and full-figured, with long brown hair and wide hazel eyes. She didn't appear to bother with makeup.

"So, I assume you all are looking for a battle," she said, grinning. She was wearing a greenish-gray T-shirt, heavy hiking boots, loose denim cutoffs and what resembled a dark yellow fisherman's vest.

"You'd be right," said Matt calmly. "One-on-one for all of us, I think." He glanced at Moriko and Russell, who nodded.

"Great! You all can decide who's going first while I grab my pokémon and three badges. Not that I'll need them," she added with a wink.

"She's…interesting," Moriko commented when Tierra had disappeared into the back room again. "You don't suppose someone'll have to fight that rhydon, do you?"

"I doubt it," said Matt. "A rhydon would be too high-level for a level one gym leader to legally use."

Further discussion was halted by Tierra's return. She was buckling a leather trainer's belt around her waist that held two pokéballs and a superball.

"So? Who's going first, then?" she asked eagerly.

"I will," Matt volunteered immediately. Russell and Moriko glanced at each other briefly before acquiescing.

"Alright. I noticed you're all wearing translators, so do you mind if Cephas referees?" she nodded at the rhydon sitting, bored, on the sidelines. "My regular referee is off sick. Don't worry, I don't think he's especially biased."

Matt shrugged, walking to one end of the arena, Maia's pokéball in his hand.

"Ready, Matthew?" Tierra called from her end.

"Whenever you like," he replied lightly.

"Begin," Cephas called out, dully.

"Go, Maia!" The tibyss emerged in a burst of red light, showing little signs of disorientation. She was unfazed when she sank slightly in the hard-packed sand. She glanced around at the gym and the arena terrain; it seemed to take her only a second or two to make an assessment.

"Go, Akaysha!" A large hedgehog-like pokémon appeared with a screech. She was similar to a normal hedgehog in most respects, aside from her much larger size. Her back was covered in bluish spines and she had large, spade-like claws. Her pelt was a dusty greyish blue color.

Moriko pulled out her pokédex and pointed its electronic eye at the pokémon. It called up the basic entry immediately.

"_Duspine, the spike pokémon. Its claws are used for digging. This pokémon can become a serious pest, damaging the foundations of buildings. It is a ground-type pokémon and evolves to dusquill at level twenty-eight._"

The battle began as she was listening to the pokédex's recorded voice.

"Maia, use bubblebeam," Matt said calmly.

"Dodge it and use your slash, Akay!" Tierra bellowed.

The words were barely out of her mouth when Maia hit the hedgehog with a devastating flurry of bubbles. The duspine leapt at the tibyss, intending to slash with the last of her strength, but Maia cuffed her with one huge paw. Akaysha flew backwards and skidded to a stop in the sand, clearly unconscious.

"Match goes to the challenger," said Cephas, looking a little less bored.

"Well," said Russell.

"Holy crap," said Moriko.

Tierra looked slightly shocked as she recalled her beaten pokémon, but regained her jovial air.

"Good battle," she announced. "You're definitely strong, Matthew." She tossed him his badge, which glinted in the light as it flew across the field.

Matt caught it easily in one hand. "Thanks," he replied, politely. "Good job, Maia," he said, returning her to her pokéball.

"Okay!" Tierra said brightly as Matt walked away. "Who's next?"

"I'll meet you guys back at the pokémon center," said Matt. "I've got some things to do. Catch you later!"

"Right," said Russell. "I'll go next," he said, louder, so Tierra could hear. He took Matt's place at one end of the field, taking Sylvia's pokéball from a pocket as he went.

"One-on-one?"

Russell nodded in agreement. "Go, Sylvia!" The cayvine burst from her pokéball, snarling.

"Go, Athena!" There was a birdlike squawk as a long-legged owl appeared from the blue flash of the superball, and immediately took flight. Her feathers were mostly brown, shading to cream on the chest and belly. She had huge yellow eyes, typical of an owl, and her round head was framed by a few spiky orange feathers on each side.

Moriko consulted her pokédex again. "_Turfowl, the burrowing pokémon. It typically lives in old duspine burrows but can dig its own. It is quite shy and will often flee rather than fight, but if cornered it will put up a considerable resistance. It evolves from earchick at level twenty-five and is a ground and flying type._"

Ground and flying? This might be tricky, as it technically gave the gym leader an advantage. Grass-types were weak to flying-type attacks.

"Begin!" the rhydon called out; apparently Russell had been consulting his pokédex as well.

"Sylvia, use growth," said Russell.

"Peck, Athena! Go for the eyes!" said Tierra. She sounded less affable now.

_Probably wants to make up for that serious defeat,_ thought Moriko, as Sylvia glowed green before snapping at the burrowing owl as it attempted to attack her. _But Maia was probably ten levels higher than her duspine…_

"Now use razor leaf!" said Russell.

"Dodge and wing attack!" shouted Tierra.

A flurry of leaves emerged from the pine needle-like clusters on Sylvia's shoulders, they seemed to fall slowly before suddenly whipping toward Athena. The owl attempted to dodge the cloud of sharp-edged leaves by flying out of their way, but there were too many to avoid damage entirely, and the attack scored a few direct hits. Long scratches on the owl's body glistened red with blood. Screeching, Athena dived at Sylvia and struck her hard in the side, but the grass-type wolf turned and bit her savagely, raking her with her thornlike claws.

Athena managed to escape Sylvia's attack and return to her side of the arena. The two pokémon circled each other, the owl leaking blood and the wolf with red on her jaws. Moriko judged that Sylvia was at about half her full strength, but the owl was definitely nearing unconsciousness.

"Use gust, Athena!"

"Finish it off with bite!"

The turfowl flapped her wings, creating a miniature windstorm that kicked up sand and buffeted the cayvine. As it subsided, Sylvia shook her head and leapt at the owl pokémon, her jaws closing around one of her wings and dragging her back down to earth. With a savage jerk, Sylvia smashed the owl's body onto the sand, where it lay unmoving.

"The match goes to trainer Russell!" bellowed Cephas, who was now actually looking slightly interested.

"Return, Athena," said Tierra quietly, before turning to her opponent. "Not bad, Russell. You overcame a type disadvantage, which is certainly admirable. I suspect you may go far," she added, grinning. She reached into a pocket and tossed the badge down the length of the arena, where Russell caught it.

"You weren't too bad yourself," he replied. "Now I know why the first gym has a tough reputation."

Tierra laughed heartily, especially after Sylvia bounded up to him and tried to lick his ears. "Flattery'll getcha nowhere, kiddo! You'd better get going, I bet your friend is itching to battle."

"I'll stay and watch, if you don't mind," said Russell, as they passed each other.

"Glad to have an audience," answered Moriko. She was feeling distinctly nervous after watching her two traveling partners battle and win, but the fact that Russell seemed to care how it turned out made her feel better.

"Okay, third and final challenger Moriko! One-on-one like the other two?"

"That's right," she answered, taking out Rufus's pokéball.

"Well believe me, you're going to have your work cut out for you," said Tierra, grinning. "Six straight losses is bad enough, but seven? Not gonna happen!"

_That's what you think,_ Moriko thought. "Go Rufus!" The flame bull appeared in a flash of red light, snorting aggressively.

"Go, Faolan!" A small, brownish wolf-like pokémon appeared on the field. He had dark green stripes along his spine, and his paws, snout and tail were all tipped with a dark chocolate color. His amber eyes narrowed as he growled at his opponent. On a thin, easily broken chain around his neck was a small pouch: Moriko recognized it as a soft sand charm, which was supposed to increase the power of a ground-type pokémon's attacks.

The pokémon himself, however, she did not recognize. Her pokédex beeped as she pointed it at Tierra's pokémon.

"_Soiote, the coyote pokémon. It is considered a scavenger and a pest by farmers, as it may attack mareep if prey is scarce. Many want to implement a culling program, which is bitterly opposed by pokémon's rights groups. It evolves from dirfox at level eighteen and is a ground and psychic type._"

_Ground and psychic? The thing's probably a raigar's mortal enemy,_ Moriko thought.

"Begin!" Cephas shouted as she returned the pokédex to her pocket.

"Faolan, use dig!"

"Dammit," she muttered, as the coyote disappeared underground, the sand of the arena apparently deeper than it looked. The pokémon would be impossible to hit—unless she had an earthquake or magnitude attack at her disposal, but she didn't so that was beside the point—until he emerged, most likely slamming into the volbine's belly.

Then, struck by sudden inspiration, she said, "okay, Rufus…can you surround your body in flames? Like you're charging up for a flame wheel attack. Get it?"

"Got it," replied Rufus, complying with her command. His mane and tail flared as fire suddenly wreathed his body.

Moriko glanced up and saw that Tierra looked slightly grim; there was, of course, no way to stop a dig attack once it had been sent into motion.

There was a rumbling sound followed by a canine scream as the soiote emerged from the sand and hit Rufus's flame shield head-on. He jumped away and rolled to put out the fire that had caught in his fur. It was extinguished quickly, although there were numerous burnt patches left on his face and front paws, preventing him from standing properly.

"Take down, Rufus!" The bull immediately complied, charging Faolan horns-first. The ground-type was tossed several feet, skidding to a stop in a cloud of sand.

"Sand attack!" Rufus was taken by surprise as a glob of sand hit him full in the face.

Moriko cursed herself for letting her guard down. _It's a psychic-type, it could have all four legs broken and it could still attack!_

"Confusion, Faolan!" Rufus was trying to clear the grit from his eyes and was taken off guard by the burst of psychic energy, which bowled him over completely. He stood, mane flaring, definitely angry.

"Use flame wheel!" Fire surged around the bull pokémon, cooking the sand around him into glass before shooting out towards his opponent. There seemed to be a small explosion when the burst of flame hit; when the kicked-up sand cleared it revealed Faolan, quite unconscious and very burned.

"Trainer Moriko is the winner!" Cephas bellowed. He looked quite pleased, as if the series of battles had actually improved his day.

Tierra recalled her pokémon silently, then seemed to recover her jovial mood. "You certainly proved me wrong. Seven losses in a row…well, I won't be able to face the other leaders, but I think you deserve the dust badge." With a flick of her wrist, she tossed something small and glistening towards Moriko. She caught it deftly and examined it.

The dust badge was a series of tan and brown concentric circles backed by a blue pentagon. It was made out of some kind of metal, painted and then lacquered so it shone. On the back was a small pin; she'd heard of trainers attaching the badges to their clothes, but an equal number preferred to keep them in special cases.

"Thanks for the battle. It was awesome," she said to Tierra, truthfully. She hugged Rufus around the neck as he trotted over to her. "You were totally hot, buddy. Pun intended."

"Yer a loser, Moriko," snorted Rufus, but she could tell he was pleased.

"Good luck," Tierra called. "Watch out on the road ahead, especially when you get into the Wild. And pray that the weather stays good."

x.x.x.x.x

Whee! Hopefully that gym battle was up to par. I'm thinking about choosing winners for the contest, so if you still want to submit a pokémon, this is your last chance!

Anyway, I'm going to BC on Saturday, so if I finish another chapter before then I'll probably announce the winners at the same time. I've been really pleased by the response the contest has generated, most of the submissions are really imaginative. D

And in response to certain review comments…what romantical things? O.o

xD muahaha!

Read and review, kiddies!


	8. Chapter 7: To the Mountains

Chapter 7: To the Mountains

"_Everyone hears only what he understands_." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When Moriko and Russell emerged from the gym, the parched air outside was sickeningly hot. It wasn't even noon yet, and the heat from the sun was already reflecting off the gravely surface that passed for a road. The air tasted stale and dusty, there being no wind to stir it.

"Gods, it's hot," Moriko breathed, fanning herself with a hand. She looked up at the sky; sadly, there wasn't a single wisp of cloud to be seen.

"Like hell's furnace," agreed Russell absently.

She looked at him curiously. "What's the matter?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing… I was just thinking about what Tierra said. About the weather."

"Russ," she said, moving in front of him and putting her hands on his shoulders. "This is very important. I want you to look up. At the sky."

"Yes?"

She paused for effect. "There isn't a single bloody cloud! Stop being stupid!"

He blinked, as if searching for a retort, but gave up and smiled slightly, his gaze shifting to the ground. "You're right. So where did Matt go?"

"We'll meet up eventually, I imagine," sighed Moriko, impatient.

"Ahh! Wait, wait wait!"

The two trainers spun around to see the gym leader running up to them, waving her arms.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she gasped out as she reached them. "I forgot to give you two your money and your technical machine…"

Tierra reached into a pocket and took out a pair of brown CDs with the number twenty-eight stenciled on them, which she handed to the two slightly confused trainers. Next, she extracted a roll of bills and counted off a number of notes into each trainer's hand.

"Heheh, awesome," Moriko commented, shoving her additional prizes into a pocket.

"That TM there is the dig technique, if you were wondering. It's pretty good, but you should really try for earthquake, if you can." She shrugged. "Anyway, if you see that blue-haired kid, tell him to come and get his spoils, all right?"

"Sure," said Russell, as Tierra nodded and started walking back to her gym.

"Uh, so… money. Yay. Where to next?"

"Let's stock up on some travel rations," said Russell. "I think that's the store, there."

"Oh good, more nuts and dried fruit. My favorite," said Moriko, walking towards the faded-blue building.

"We can probably get some cheese and sausage here. It'll be nice for a change, but we'll have to eat them first."

"Like the bagels…I tell you, Russ, I don't think I'll be able to keep up with the pace that Matt sets this time. The kid is a _machine_."

"He's had more practice, I guess. We've only gone backpacking a couple times before this…last summer, and that school trip…"

"And the summer before last. We went up to the mountains for those, though," said Moriko, opening the screen door.

It was slightly cooler inside the general store, which was probably the nearest thing to a supermarket for two hundred kilometers. The interior was mostly constructed out of wood, while the exterior had been reinforced with brick and steel beams. A large number of fans hummed away on shelves, from the floor or whirled above their heads. It produced an effect not unlike sitting in a car traveling at ninety kilometers an hour with all the windows rolled down, but at least it wasn't as hot as outside. There was an older woman sitting at the till, smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper, who didn't seem to be paying them any attention. Her hair looked like the result of a beehive colliding with a candyfloss machine, spray-painted silver.

Russell always had a better idea of what to buy, so she just mimicked his purchases. Dried apples, wheat crackers… no peanut butter, they still had plenty of that. She felt herself zoning out. She'd taken a class on the economics of pokémon journeys… what to buy and where to spend your money and so forth. Likewise with surviving in the outdoors, but she was finding she didn't remember as much as she thought, based on the number of times Matt had chewed her out over the six days they'd spent together so far. Russell was flawless as usual, except for one or two things that he quickly corrected.

Something about Matthew really irked her. Apart from alternating between mellowness and arrogance, and apart from his easy, relaxed approach to the trainer quest, there was a sense of… concealment. Like the whole story wasn't being told—

"Medium or old, Mor?"

"What?"

"Your cheddar," said Russell patiently, holding up a thin wedge.

"Uh, medium."

x.x.x.x.x

"Oh good, you're back."

"Hey Matt."

He was sitting in the pokémon center's lounge with Maia sitting on the floor, but with her upper body lying on the couch. He stroked one of her small ears idly.

"Did you both win?"

"Yeah."

"The gym leader forgot to give us our additional prizes, so you should go over and see her," said Russell.

"Oh really? What did you guys get?"

"TM 28 and about three thousand yen."

"Nice. I'll pop over after lunch. Oh yeah, sorry I didn't stay to watch, but I had to, uh, call my mom… I promised her and all that." He shrugged, reddening slightly.

"'S'okay," said Russell. "Lucky to have someone who cares, I guess."

Moriko nodded. "So where to next?"

"Verdure Town," said Matt. "I hear it's basically a mountain resort for rich-asses from… you know, everywhere other than here." He grinned. "They fly in, though, so the road curves away, toward Porphyry City."

"Sin City?" Russell's mouth twitched. "We have to go there for the level three badge, don't we?"

"Yeah, we do… I hear it's quite the place." He glanced at Moriko.

"Lots of bars and brothels that don't check your age, eh?" she said, coolly. "Well, you're free to have fun, if you like, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm getting my badge and getting out."

"No point in getting ahead of ourselves, of course," said Russell, quickly. "How far is it to Verdure Town?"

Matthew shrugged. "Maybe… nine or ten days. If the weather's good."

"I was looking at a map… it's only about five hundred and fifty kilometers, as the murkrow flies, but I'm guessing there'll be… steep bits."

"Yeah. It's easiest to weave through the floodplains," said Matt, nodding.

"Godsdamn… ten days?" said Moriko.

"It gets worse after that," said Matt, smiling slightly. "I hear it takes three weeks to cross the Exare Desert. If you're lucky."

Moriko felt like forcibly removing not only Matt's smirk but his ability to do so for a white-hot second, but mastered the impulse. "Well, you never do as well on the run if you don't warm up first," she said, picking up her bags and not looking at him.

"Do you guys want to have lunch and then set out?"

"Yeah, at two o' clock, so we can avoid the worst of the heat," agreed Matt.

Moriko shrugged. "Sure."

Maia had been completely still during the trainers' exchange, sitting with her head on her paws. Suddenly she looked up, in the direction of the lobby. The three trainers followed her gaze, but saw nothing but the empty room.

"Maia? What was it?"

"Oh… I must have imagined it. I was almost half asleep," she said, dismissive. Moriko had not heard the tibyss speak before that moment. The quiet predator had a melodic contralto voice, filled with hidden tones and inflections. It put her in mind of ocean currents and… lights in the dark.

"Okay. Hey, listen, you two…I'm just curious, but I noticed that you guys check your pokédexes almost every time we see a pokémon, but not if it's old-world."

"Our pokémon theory class curriculum was imported from Kanto, I think, with suppliments from Hoenn," said Russell. "So we _know_ about those pokémon. But a lot of the wild pokémon we're seeing now we only know the names of, and not much else. That's why we're pulling out the books."

Moriko shifted her weight, staring at the floor. They were talking mainly about her. She really liked pokémon, but in between learning mathematics and language and geography, she hadn't really learned that much about her home region, had she?

"Uh, listen, you guys… I'm going to pack up my stuff. I'll meet you guys for lunch later."

"Okay," said Matt, checking his watch. "Call it twenty minutes?"

"Sure," she said, already walking towards the stairs.

x.x.x.x.x

_Knock, knock._

"Come in," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. The pokécenter inn was reasonably furnished, but all of her current possessions were already packed away, and the room looked nearly untouched.

Russell let himself in, giving her a small wave. He crossed the room and sat down beside her, the bed sagging slightly under his weight.

"Still fussing over that hat?" he asked, nodding toward the thing in her lap.

"Yeah," she said, not looking at him. She turned it partially inside out. "I decided to pin my badges to the inside, so you wouldn't be able to 'accidentally' set it on fire."

"Pity," said Russell, giving a mock sigh. "You'll have to really make sure it doesn't blow away, I guess."

"Yeah, I thought about that."

"So…" he began, after a moment. "Matt bothering you?"

"Slightly."

"Well… I guess we've only known him for a week. Maybe he'll grow on you."

"Why do you like him so much?"

"He knows what he's doing. But I guess he doesn't cut into me quite as often as you."

"He doesn't cut into _you_ at _all_," said Moriko, feeling immature and not caring.

Russell sighed. "There could be lots of reasons why he's tough on you, but I don't know how to change it. That's your job."

"Whatever."

"Would you prefer if it was just you and me?" he asked, quietly.

"I—you—that is to say—if I—I don't like what you're getting at," she finally snapped.

"Oh good. Come on, let's eat and get going."

x.x.x.x.x

"Moriko, Moriko...You know, you don't really look Japanese."

"My last name's Rotewald. German, Matt, in case you were wondering. But I don't know about my first name… I guess my mom just liked it. I think it has something to do with 'forest'," she replied, feeling annoyed and not really knowing why. She shifted the weight of her backpack as she walked.

"All right. And your last name, Russ…"

"Yes?"

"Ever hear of a man named Maximus Ignatius?"

"Let's see… I recall something from pokémon history class. He was… ah yes, he was the leader of the short-lived Team Magma. That was years and years ago, though."

"He went insane at the end," said Moriko, her own memory piqued by Russell's recollection.

"Yeah, really bad. I think his daughter tried to carry on with Team Magma, but it just fell apart after a few months."

"Meanwhile, Team Rocket carries on, as strong as ever."

"Do you think they've wandered over here yet?"

"Nah, I think they prefer big cities where they can run casinos and such…they'd have to compete with various bandits and things over here."

"Yes, good, but Ignatius isn't exactly a common last name," Matt continued.

"Look, I don't know, all right? Maybe he's a distant cousin or something."

Since abandoning the road, their rate of wild pokémon sightings had increased dramatically, but there wasn't much to interest the three trainers. They shared the view that unless one had plans to actively train a pokémon, they were better off left in the wild. They considered collecting pokémon for the sake of having them a cruel practice; a fairly common belief, especially in the more established regions where translators had achieved near-ubiquity.

Clawbit darted through the long grass while the occasional warhare, their evolved form, calmly monitored the three trainers' passage. The yellowish-brown rabbit-like pokémon favored standing on its hind legs, but still traveled on all fours. Their faces, forelegs and upper backs exhibited dull red and blue tattoo-like fur, and it seemed that each individual would evolve into its own unique pattern.

The three had also seen a herd of the grass and normal type bison earlier in the day, consisting of the juvenile leifer, the female florow and the male bulbull. The leifer resembled bison calves with tan-colored fur and intermittent greenish spots. The bulbull they had seen a specimen of before, but they noticed that the larger, presumably older males developed clusters of garlic or onion-like bulbs at the edge of their shoulders. The florow were a dull shade of bluish lavender, with numerous small flowers apparently growing out of their shaggy coats, but otherwise quite similar to regular bison cows.

Moriko had felt rather inclined toward attempting to catch one of them, but Matthew had advised against it, saying that it would be extremely dangerous to attempt to engage the herd.

As they alternately walked and slept, with occasional stops to eat, the prairie grasses slowly gave way to more and more trees. The land became hillier and they found themselves fording small fast-flowing streams more than once, and in the distance, the mountains loomed, peaked with ice although it was high summer, their outline as jagged as the bones of a dead gyarados.

The storm caught them by surprise on their fifth day of travel, gathering to the east and breaking with a vengeance. They tried to keep walking until it ended, but as it steadily grew darker and darker, they knew they'd have to find shelter soon.

"Should we try to make camp?" asked Russell, yelling over the howling winds, trying to shield himself from the driving rain. All three of them were already soaked to the skin.

"We'd blow away!" Matt snapped back.

"Are clouds allowed to be that dark?" asked Moriko.

Matt looked up, his expression changing, as if he'd suddenly considered a new, highly unpleasant plot twist. He looked around, desperately; it seemed he'd rolled a six in the game of Fate as a bolt of lightning illuminated the shape of a house.

"Over there! Let's go!"

The rain and wind lashed them as they jogged as fast as they could towards the lone building, low-growing bushes raking at their legs if they didn't pay enough attention to the terrain. It started to hail as they reached the house, starting pea-sized and progressing rapidly to the size of shooter marbles. Matthew pounded on the door with most of his lower arm, almost desperately.

The door opened shortly, revealing a rather irate man with graying cobalt blue hair and ice-blue eyes.

"What the hell are you kids doing here at this time o' night?" he thundered, tying his bathrobe as he spoke.

"You fucking _geezer_! Listen to the wind!" Matt snarled, with a ferocity that surprised her—what was the matter with him, and what was so special about the wind?

The man actually complied, to Moriko's amazement; she would've given Matt a punch in the jaw. In the ensuing silence, the wind _growled_.

"You kids better get inside," he said, calmly, standing aside to let them in.

He closed the door and turned the lock; as he walked away the storm rattled it like an animal trying to get in.

"Down that door is the cellar; why don't you go sit down there?" He said it almost idly, but something about it suggested that it wasn't a request.

Matt didn't need an invitation. He started walking towards the door before the man had finished speaking. Russell and Moriko followed him, descending via a creaky wooden staircase. There was a metallic _chink_ in the darkness ahead of them and the basement was illuminated by the dull yellow glow of a naked bulb.

The floor was slightly rough wooden boards, but the wood shelves were set into the bare earth of the walls.

"Matt," Russell began quietly, "what the hell is going on?"

"We're currently experiencing a bout of severe weather," said Matt, dropping his backpack and sitting down. "It's just better to be indoors during this sort of storm."

"No, no, I mean when you told the old guy to listen to the wind. What was that?" Russell took his pack off and sat down, opposite Matt.

"I was just stressing to him how serious the weather was. Is." He'd taken out a sausage and was cutting slices off of it with the hunting knife he'd extracted from one of his boots. All calm, all serene; as she put her bag down and sat beside Russell, Moriko noticed that his hand shook slightly as he carved up the sausage.

Presently, the door opened at the top of the stairs, revealing the man, carrying a girl who looked about eight or nine, followed by a plump woman and a young teenaged boy, who held the door open long enough for a growlithe pup to pass before locking and bolting it. They were all in their nightclothes and bathrobes.

The woman took a quilt off one of the shelves and spread it on the rough floor before the family sat down as well, in the space the trainers had left empty.

"I suppose I'd better thank you three. If you hadn't turned up, we might've just slept through it. I'm Josh Strathern, by the way," he said, nodding to each of them.

"I'm Rosalie," said his wife, who had long, flowing crimson hair. "This is Michael, and Krista."

"Hey," said the boy, who looked about thirteen or fourteen. He stroked the growlithe puppy, who was looking back and forth between the trainers warily.

"Hi," Krista whispered, shyly, from her spot on the blanket.

"I'm Moriko."

"Russell."

"Matthew."

"Mum, what's going on?"

"It's just the storm, dear. It'll be quieter down here, so you can sleep better." Matthew seemed to shiver violently in the silence that followed.

"Oh, my. Would you three like a blanket?" asked Rosalie. "You look soaked to the skin!"

"S-sure," said Matt, shivering again.

"Absolutely," confirmed Moriko.

"Let's see…I've got two others here," she said, taking them off the shelf.

Moriko glanced at Russell. "That's fine. We'll share."

The blankets were large quilts, grown soft with use and probably put away due to replacement by a newer version. Russell and Moriko took off their rather muddy boots before sitting on a long edge of the blanket and wrapping the rest of it around themselves. Matt kicked off his own boots and wrapped himself up in the large blanket. He lay in the fetal position on the floor, using a bunched-up portion of the quilt as a pillow.

The storm roared on above them, although it sounded muffled from the cellar. The girl fell asleep on her mother's lap, who also dozed off eventually; the teenager ended up using the growlithe as a pillow. Matt fell asleep as well, or at least his odd, almost convulsive shivers stopped. Russell slouched and eventually fell asleep on Moriko's shoulder.

The man sat with his arms folded, staring straight ahead and listening, listening to the storm… almost like a guard who'd been caught napping, and who was now determined not to have the event repeat itself.

She blinked and yawned, feeling profoundly tired after all the excitement. _I'd better just rest my eyes for a moment,_ she thought, leaning her head against Russell's as her eyelids fluttered closed.

x.x.x.x.x

**(04/09/05)** **Yup… edited.**** I'll leave the old author's notes on this one, I guess.**

So…all that and nothing really happened, did it? Sorry. Next chapter should be more action-packed. n.n;

Okay, and I'm going to announce the winners of the contest now:

First Place: Julie and her submission, the Sunami/Tifune/Tornicane line! One of our main characters will catch one of these pokémon!

Second Place: Empiric and their submission, the Sahoul/Mirronos/Glanaith line! Well…you'll see. Muahahaha!

Third Place: The Mad Tortoise and their submission, Paraslit! An "episode" will be devoted to this pokémon!

I just wanted to commend everyone else on their great submissions; it was really hard to choose between them to decide the winners. However, don't feel discouraged if you didn't win; these three are just the ones I'm 99 percent sure I can feature in the story. If I can fit the others in, I'll put them in, even if it's just a mention.

I think there's one or two people who wanted to submit a pokémon who didn't get around to it yet, and to you I say: take your time, and if I like your submissions I might use them in a chapter, just like the "non-winners".

Anyway, congratulations to the winners and a big thank you to everyone who participated! n.n

What are you waiting for? REVIEW!

PS. DUMB FFnet! Why do they have to strip every kind of character except letters and punctuation! I like my chat smilies the way they are! –hiss-


	9. Chapter 8: Light and Shadow

Chapter 8: Light and Shadow

"I want to be the greatest Pokémon Master who ever walked under the sun...or in darkness."

Moriko stirred, blinking groggily. Her back ached, a testament to the short night she'd spent sleeping on a hard floor. The cellar was empty; there was a ray of sunlight slanting through the cracks of the closed door. She'd cocooned herself in the blanket at some point; she extricated herself from it, pulled on her boots and went up the stairs, which creaked at her every step.

She ran a hand through her vaguely greasy hair as she glanced in the farmhouse's various rooms: all empty. She walked outside into the sunlight with a vague sense of unease.

There was a paddock in the back, fenced. She descended the steps on the sparsely furnished back porch and approached the enclosure.

Moriko had seen a picture of a donkey, once, in a book. Animals that weren't pokémon were common enough in other regions, but there weren't many in Gaiien. People here preferred herd animals that wouldn't think much of stomping a raigar or a soiote into a bloody pulp. The animal she'd seen in the book looked gentle, even patient. The worst it could probably do was bite someone in the buttock if it got _really_ testy.

These pokémon weren't like that at all.

For one, while a large donkey might grow to be five feet high at the shoulder, these pokémon were all at least six feet. The fence seemed pretty pointless; any of them could probably clear it with a walking start. Or even just batter it down and walk away.

They had no tails at all, red pupil-less eyes and huge, heavy hooves, like a draught-horse. Their almost reptilian-looking skin came in slightly varying shades of coal black that lightened on the snout and underside, and had little luster. They had longish fur or hair along their fetlocks and the back of the neck.

One or two stared at her with a sort of bored curiosity. Well, despite their appearance, they seemed placid enough—

It was at this point that one of them disappeared, reappearing a split-second later to smack one of its fellows in the side with a faint attack. Moriko had the vague idea that donkeys were supposed to have a deep, grating bray. The sound the struck pokémon made, in surprised anger, sounded like a knife being dragged across a chalkboard. Its open mouth revealed weird, needle-like teeth; she dimly realized none of them had been grazing. She cringed at the sound, and then almost gasped as it reared up on its hind legs and was about to kick its attacker in the face—

An orange and cream blur came to a halt between the two pokémon, and didn't even flinch when the huge hoof came down on its side. The arcanine snarled at the dark pokémon and snapped at it in response to its outraged hiss, but seemed to be careful not to hurt it. The black pokémon screamed again, before galloping away, embarrassed or angry or both.

The attacking pokémon looked amused, until the arcanine rounded on it, growling savagely. It slunk away, thoroughly chastised.

There was the sound of hooves, and a figure riding a pokémon appeared. It was as different from the pokémon in the paddock as, as, well…black from white. It was the same size as the other pokémon, but definitely a horse and far more elegant. It was a white so pure that it seemed to glow.

"Damn grimass!" said the figure, riding up to her. "They're always fighting."

Moriko looked at the rider, whom she recognized as Michael, from before. He had dark violet hair and his father's eyes, she noticed. The horse pokémon's eyes seemed like they were the same shade, but lighter.

"Those things—er, those pokémon are called grimass?"

"Yeah. Raleigh keeps 'em in line. Mostly," he said, nodding toward the arcanine, who was approaching. "These ones are still pretty wild, so they have kinda poor temperaments."

"What's this beast called, then?" she asked, giving into the temptation to stroke its nose. It felt like velvet.

"Hikaru's a nimbval," Michael said proudly. "They're light-types."

Moriko nodded. She'd heard about the light-type pokémon. It was a relatively newly discovered type (by researchers. People and trainers who'd seen and worked with them for years didn't count), examples of which were only found in more remote regions. Several normal-type, non-damaging attacks had to be re-classified as light-type, like flash and heal bell. In fact, while types like fire and water had many different damage-dealing techniques, light-types only had a few on record. It was the opinion of most battle experts that light-types, on the whole, were not suitable for fighting, but better off being used as healers.

"So…where is everybody?"

"Well, my dad took Russell and Matthew to see if anybody was hurt by the storm. There was a tornado, you know…well, I mean, you were out in it, you probably know already…" he trailed off, looking like he was berating himself mentally. "Anyway, if everybody's all right they'll be back by noon, but if there's something wrong it could be longer."

_A tornado?_ she thought. _Well, that made sense, but…damn, Matt was_ scared. _Maybe…maybe he lost something to a storm…_

She shook her head slightly, not sure where that thought came from.

"So why didn't they want me to come?" she said, voicing another thought.

"My dad wanted you to, actually, but Russell said we should let you sleep," he said, shrugging.

"Huh. Is there anything I can do, then?"

"Well," Michael said, "have you ever seen a celestiule?"

x.x.x.x.x

Colored lights flashed from all corners of the room, reflecting off mirrors and glass. The synthesized techno beat thumped from the gigantic subwoofer, the bass pulse of a dragon suffering from hypertension. Humanoid figures spun and slid, their glowing ornamentation turning them into carousels of light.

Cassandra sat in the bar, mostly removed from the sweaty rainbow of the club. Her chest still ached from when she'd gone too close to a bass speaker imbedded in a wall. She felt like her heart had decided to follow the pace of the music, instead of the tempo her brain was insisting on. She took a sip of her cola—laced with rum—and scanned the crowded bar for anyone even _remotely_ interesting. There was one guy who didn't look stoned, but he had linked arms with an extremely augmented blonde who was leading him back to the…well, the rave.

What was she doing here? She'd heard there were places in this backwards region where there were lumps of ice in the streams, even in high summer, and places where you could stand and see every star. So why had she let Adrienne drag her to this stupid town? There were plenty of clubs back in Kanto! _But that was the thing, wasn't it?_ she thought gloomily. It was like going to the Outland Islands and eating fast food all the time. You don't go on a vacation to do something different, you go on vacation to do the same old thing, only maybe with mangoes.

She shifted on her seat, turning slightly towards the door to the rest of the club. She finished her drink, which was starting to feel like it needed some company.

It was subtle, like a change in the air. He was about average height but muscular, with long hair the color of fire, and he walked in like he owned the place. She dimly noticed the drunk kid next to her get up and stagger off towards the washrooms.

Suddenly he was beside her, his black trenchcoat fluttering to a stop, almost in slow motion. His eyes were dark red, like dried blood.

"Can I sit there?" he asked.

x.x.x.x.x

Moriko's understanding of pokémon breeding was fairly basic, but as far as she knew, pokémon bred with a pokémon of a different evolutionary line, would always produce an egg. From that egg would hatch a pokémon of the lowest evolutionary form of the mother, and occasionally knowing techniques that the father knew. Other than that, there was minimal hybridization: it took a very, very long time to breed a pokémon into something even slightly different, although unusual colorings were usually easy to cultivate.

When a nimbval and a grimass were bred, the same pokémon resulted, regardless of which was the mother and which was the father. It was one of the few real hybrid pokémon that existed.

And…well, they were pretty boring.

Celestiule with a grimass for a mother were storm gray, with large ears and short tails. They were slighter in build than the dark-type, and somewhat better tempered. Celestiule fathered by a grimass were a lighter, smoke gray, with a heavier build than a nimbval. They also had larger ears and shorter tails than the light-type horse.

She'd sort of half-expected, upon Michael informing her that the two pokémon could actually produce hybrids, that they would be brilliantly colored. It sort of made sense, with black being all hues mixed together and white being the absence of color.

But they were just a bunch of gray mules.

"The ones sired by nimbval are more in demand by trainers, because they can learn attacks from the father that're more useful to them in battle," Michael was saying. "But the ones sired by grimass are better for shows and contests. And they're harder to get because the nimbval dams can be pretty choosy, so they sell for more."

"They all look pretty calm. Didn't the storm worry them?" said Moriko, casting her eye over the various mothers and their celestiule colts.

"Nope, my dad taught a few of the older jacks and stallions the tempest attack, back in the day, so a lot of them know it now."

Moriko nodded. Tempest was a weather attack that created a windstorm in battle, but could counter an existing one if done right. The pokémon could calm the storm near them, evading any danger the winds might pose. If it got really bad…they could crowd together and create their _own_ tornado to protect them from, say, rogue farmhouses.

"So is that all you really raise? Celestiules?"

"No, pure-bred nimbval are really popular too, being rare and all. Grimass are probably the least in demand, but more experienced trainers like them, occasionally."

Michael tilted his head, listening for some faint sound. "Say, I think your friends are back. Hungry?"

"I'm _starving_."

x.x.x.x.x

"It's a free region, I assume," Cassandra answered, detached. His voice was a pleasant tenor, with a very slight accent she couldn't place.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

"If you like," she said, lightly.

"Have you ever had rice wine?"

"No, I haven't."

"Sake," he said to the bartender. "For two."

She studied him, smiling slightly. He was quite good-looking, except for the vertical scars on his lips.

"So," he said, after their drinks had arrived. "Where are you from?"

"How do you know I'm not from here?" she countered.

"No one's from Porphyry City. They're always from somewhere else," he said, unruffled.

"I see. Well, you're right, obviously…I'm from Celadon City."

"You've come a long way, then."

"An eighteen hour flight, just to sit in some disco? Yeah, that's pretty long."

"I know what you mean," he said. "You came with some friends, I imagine?"

"You're right. They're off somewhere, in the rave, probably crazy enough to decide that getting high is a good idea." She stopped, amazed at the bitterness she was actually sharing with a perfect stranger.

"That's a real shame. Why _did_ you come to Gaiien then?"

"I heard…well, you're going to think this is pretty silly…but…look, Kanto is so…urban, now. There's hardly a square meter of ground that hasn't been disturbed by trainers. But this place…it sounded like there might actually be some magic here. Some wildness left over from before humans came here." The sake was definitely loosening her tongue. Oh well, what was the harm?

"And then here you are, smothered in the ultimate expression of industrialized, urbanized humanity?" he said, in the bored, languorous tones of a cat.

"That's precisely it."

"Well, you should know that places like that exist in Gaiien. Not too far from here, in fact. I could take you to see one, but you needn't trust some stranger in a bar, of course. Almost anyone could do it, I think."

She probably wouldn't have done it normally, but the alcohol was making her feel a little more…adventurous.

"Why don't _you_ show me? I'm Cassandra, by the way."

He extended a hand. "Call me Loki."

x.x.x.x.x

"So where did you guys go?"

"Mister Strathern took us around to a couple of other farms and this outpost," said Russell, cutting up his back bacon. "We were basically trying to make sure no-one was hit directly by the tornado last night."

"Was anyone?"

"No, it just cut through a few fields and spooked some mareep," said Matt. "Nothing to worry about."

"That's lucky."

"Did you see the pokémon they have here?" asked Russell.

"Yeah. Those celestiule were a bit anti-climactic, I thought," said Moriko, getting her eggs acquainted with some ketchup.

"I loved 'em. Especially the foals. So cute…" said Russell, trailing off, slightly.

"So Matt…you were really acting weird last night, and I was wondering if it was something you could explain," said Moriko, staring at her lunch.

Matt was silent a moment. "I…well…I have a bit of a fear of tornadoes, I guess. That's all."

She looked up and they locked gazes for a moment. She looked away first.

"Right."

x.x.x.x.x

"What happened to your mouth, then?"

"Someone sewed it shut, as it happens."

"Oh my god."

"It was a long time ago."

She'd been expecting a testy silence or a terse reply, but…_sewed it shut_…sweet gods.

"But…shouldn't there…"

He turned towards her and indicated one of several small, almost circular scars above and below his lips, more regular than the jagged vertical ones.

"The other ones…well, let's just say I was a bit over-excited when I was cutting the threads."

He smiled.

x.x.x.x.x

Mister Strathern had been very kind, lending them each a grimass to ride. Only temporarily of course; they had been instructed to set them loose once they reached the edge of the mountain forests. Moriko had been wary at first, but the gelding she'd been loaned was placid enough.

Russell had walked away with more: he'd been presented with an odd, cloudy-shelled gray egg. Apparently one of the adult celestiule had produced it, which wasn't really supposed to happen, as the hybrids were supposed to be sterile. In any case, being around battling pokémon would encourage it to hatch. He'd got it because he only had one pokémon so far, while she and Matt both had two.

Now trotting towards the mountains, it seemed like there wasn't much to worry about. They were going to make good time with these pokémon giving their pace a temporary boost, and the sky was clear and blue.

Well…

Strathern had been strapping her backpack to the grimass's rump. The pokémon itself had fixed her with the intelligent gaze of a pokémon that knows you'll understand it, but prefers to pretend that you're a dumb human.

"It's a hard life for those celestiule, you know."

"…What?"

"Living between light and dark, y'see. Nimbval or grimass, they _know_ what they are. Light or dark, and they say, good or evil. But celestiule…they live near the edge. The spot where light changes to shadow. They have to _choose_."

He'd given the cords a final tug, to make sure it was secure.

"Shades of gray, y'see. Just like humans." He shrugged. "Think about it."

Just think about it…

x.x.x.x.x

**(22/01/06) Edited very slightly, reviewer reply removed.**

Okay, I lied. Not really action-packed, again. The next chapter will be, DEFINITELY. I'm sure of it.

BWAGH! FFnet keeps stripping my documents of my scene-separators! I want my equals-signs back, dammit! x.x


	10. Chapter 9: Darwinism

Chapter 9: Darwinism

"_Thus the weak members of civilized society propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of men._"  
- C. Darwin, _The__ Descent of Man_

There was a body on the road.

He'd put up quite a fight, if the blood was anything to go by.

His backpack lay not far from him, scratched and chewed by small animals trying to get at the food inside.

There was a body on the road.

Something had torn open his chest and eaten his heart.

She stared at the remains of a trainer, identity and destination unknown, in a sort of numb mixture of horror and ire.

Flies buzzed around. She was trying very hard not to look at his shattered, mauled chest—meat-red peppered with shards of glaring-white bone.

It was funny. Seeing an eel pokémon get its head bitten off made her physically ill, while this… _carcass_ merely evoked a vague sort of anger.

Dimly, she heard the sounds of Russell being violently sick a little ways away.

Matt was cutting open the corpse's pockets, looking for identification. He pulled out a stained trainer's card and a light green pokédex.

"Anyone we know?" she heard herself say. She sounded a bit insane, now that she thought about it.

"Trevor D. Richardson, of Steppe Town," answered Matt, calmly. He crouched again and removed a pokéball and a super ball from a pocket further down the boy's leg.

"You stupid, stupid bastard," he muttered.

"What?"

"Not only was he traveling alone, but he had his pokémon—which could have defended him—in a hard-to-reach pocket. These belts aren't for decoration! When people tell you to travel in groups—there's a reason! Idiot... did you think at all?"

Matt stared off into the distance; sighed, shook his head.

"What… do you think… got him?"

"A wolf or a big cat would've broken his neck first. Reptiles just overpower and tear things out. Usually." Matt walked around, looking at the droplets of dried blood on the sandy ground and splattered on the grass. "No… it was something that flies. There's no trail that I can see. But… why just the heart?" he added, quietly.

"What do we do?" she asked, breaking the ensuing silence.

"Take his card, pokédex and pokémon, and report him dead in Verdure Town." One of the grimass they'd been riding wandered over—Russell's, she had his bag strapped to her rump—and was idly sniffing the body. Matt reached over and pulled her away from it by the halter.

"Don't," he said, simply.

"Humans are so stupid, you know," the pokémon replied in her high, hissing voice. "Why do you get so emotional over meat?"

"He was a trainer, like us," said Matt evenly.

"Just protein now," said the grimass, baring her fangs. "Why do you waste it?"

"We respect the dead."

"Respect the living. My brothers and I are hungry. If we do not eat, _they_ will. Look around."

They did. A couple of murkrow were fluttering around on the road. Here and there the twitch of a tail or ear indicated that a soiote or dirfox was interested in continuing their carrion meal.

"He has not been dead for long, but the heat quickens decay. Better to eat soon," said the grimass.

"What killed him?" asked Matt, suddenly.

"Foals don't need to know," she said, firmly.

The silence was filled with the idle buzzing of the flies and a short caw from one of the murkrow.

Matt relaxed his hand, releasing his hold on the pokémon's halter.

"Make it quick."

By unspoken agreement, Matt and Moriko turned their backs on the corpse and started walking over to Russell, as the three grimass moved in on it.

"I could have gotten Rufus to cremate him, you know," she said, quietly.

"Too dangerous with all this dry grass around," Matt said, but without the contemptuous bite he usually would have had.

"…Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just… felt kind of stupid because that grimass was right. And…"

"And what?"

"That could've been me… if I hadn't let Maia talk me into going with you two. I wanted to go by myself… that's the way—that's how I do everything, usually. Alone."

"I'm mostly regretting the fact that we forgot to go slightly northwest and hit the road again." It wasn't _entirely_ their fault. The highway curved north, around a large patch of forest. Russell had ran toward the stunted trees and low bushes on this side of the road, in an attempt to find a mildly private place to be sick in. He didn't get very far.

"Heh…yeah. Oh, there's Russell—"

"Hey, I think he's pulling out a pokéball…"

Sylvia appeared in a flash of red light as they ran up to her trainer. Across from the grass-type wolf was a rather smaller fox with a silvery pelt and a pale rust-colored underbelly, snout and paws.

As Russell told Sylvia to use a vine whip, Moriko pulled out her pokédex. She recognized the pokémon for once, but wanted to know more.

"_Dirfox__, the swift fox pokémon.__ It is very shy and preys mostly on small rodents and birds. It prefers using illusory techniques to actual fighting, allowing it time to escape from battle. It evolves to soiote at level eighteen and is a ground and psychic type._"

The fox pokémon yelped in pain as Sylvia's vines slapped at him, before creating multiple copies of itself with a double team technique.

"Use razor leaf and grab the real one with your vines," said Russell.

The cayvine launched a flurry of sharp-edged leaves into the pack of illusory dirfox. One—the real one—screeched with pain as he received a cut across the snout and attempted to flee, but Sylvia was quicker. She stretched out a pair of vines and wrapped them around the fox's belly, lifting him and drawing him back to her. He writhed and whined unintelligibly, silenced only when Sylvia slammed him onto the ground. Even then, he tried to crawl away, before being converted to energy and sucked into the metallic embrace of a thrown pokéball. It wiggled once or twice before lying still.

"Great work, Sylvia," said Russell, scratching the wolf behind the ears.

"Thanks! He really fought hard against being captured, didn't he?" she replied, wagging her tail happily.

"Yeah, he really did…" said Russell, bending to pick up the pokéball. "Oh, hey," he said, noticing the other two trainers.

"Hi. Feeling better?" said Matt.

"Yeah," he replied, reddening a bit.

"Nice capture, by the way," said Moriko.

Russell smiled slightly. "Well, I saw that there were a few of them… scavenging… and Moriko fought its evolved form back at the ground gym. It looked like a decent pokémon." He shrugged. "Plus… I needed something to take my mind off… to take my mind off…" he swallowed, adam's apple bobbing, probably trying to control his rising gorge.

"Yeah, speaking of that," said Matt quickly, "why don't you two keep walking up the road—this side of the road—while I round up the grimass?"

"Sure," said Moriko, nodding.

"Sounds good," said Russell, sounding relieved. "Oh, right… Sylvia, return," he said, holding up the cayvine's pokéball, who was converted to energy and disappeared. Russell minimized her pokéball and clipped it onto his belt, next to the new dirfox.

"How's the egg?" asked Moriko as Matt jogged back toward the road. It'd only been about a day since he got it, so it was unlikely there'd be any changes, but she couldn't think of anything else to ask.

"I kind of fancy something's moving inside a bit, when I hold it, but other than that it's pretty boring. I stashed it in my pack shortly before my stomach really felt like it wanted to start this whole digestive thing over again…"

"Are you worried it might break?"

"Eh… the shell feels pretty thick, but Onyx—er, the grimass I was riding said she'd move gently and try not to fight anyone if I needed to leave her with it."

Moriko nodded, but realized she hadn't even asked her grimass's name and felt her stomach knot slightly. _That's something Dave would do… not ask because it's just a pokémon… I'm not like that, am I?_ She shook her head slightly. _No… you were preoccupied. And we were only going to have them for a couple of days anyway. Yeah, that sounds reasonable…_

They were walking slowly through the grasses, skirting around the thorny, twisted bushes scattered here and there. Not far from them the stand of pines began.

"I was really surprised that you actually threw up… I mean, seeing Maia eat that silteel didn't really bother you," said Moriko quietly.

"It… the trainer… it was just too horrible," he managed to say.

"Maybe you can help explain why I didn't lose it."

"Mmm… maybe you went so far through shock and horror and general grossed-out-ness that you came out the other side, and ended up not actually experiencing any of them."

She looked at the ground with its glacier-deposited, lichen-encrusted rocks protruding here and there. "Do you think I'm heartless?"

"…No. Who said that?"

"No one. I just thought it."

x.x.x.x.x

The mountains of the north were legendary for their high peaks, dangerous pokémon, unpredictable weather and inexorable natures. Luckily, the three trainers would not have to face them for some time…

These are the mountains of the west. Thick, dark pine forests adorn the slopes of craggy peaks like the blankets of sleeping giants. Gray clouds wander from summit to summit, raining gently; the thunder here wanders idly, bouncing from peak to peak. In the valleys the watermeadows teem with life, taking advantage of the seasonal influx of water.

They reached the very edge of the mountain forests a short time ago, loosing their dark steeds to return to their farm. She'd wondered aloud how the three grimass could be trusted to go back on their own. Wouldn't they be tempted by the freedom of the wild?

"We can't trust them," Matt had said, "but Strathern did, or he wouldn't have let us borrow them."

The rain came down in a humid drizzle most of the time, dripping off leaves and collecting in hollows. The three trainers followed crisscrossing game trails that, here and there, seemed worn enough to be an actual path. Their GPS modules indicated that Verdure Town was not far, but much time was wasted in finding places to ford the frigid, mineral-stained rivers and having to backtrack in order to keep their path on more-or-less level ground.

Five days of this had left the three tired, hungry and rather sick of forests; their GPS modules indicated that they had at least a day longer to walk before they reached the mountain Verdure Town was situated on. There hadn't even been that many wild pokémon—maybe they were avoiding the trainers—to fight and keep their minds off their trek.

It was Matt and Russell's turn to walk down the river in opposite directions in an attempt to find the shallowest point within a couple of kilometers. Moriko had strung up a tarp (it wasn't raining now, but with all the mist around it would start up randomly) and was dozing a few meters from the stony riverbank, using the three packs as a makeshift bed. Tarahn was beside her to provide a little extra warmth in the damp: the raigar was sleeping rather better than she, as the stony ground didn't affect him as much.

She didn't envy the two boys; she'd had to scout the last two river crossings, and it was bloody boring… for her, anyway: Rufus trotted around, trying all the new plants, nothing making him sick, while Tarahn jumped in and out of the water, terrorizing fish and scaring birds.

She was just about asleep when she felt the raigar sit up like he'd been startled.

"Moriko?"

"Mmm?"

"I heard something."

"Like w—" She could hear it too, just on the edge of perceivable noise. It was a very slight crescendo, the volume increasing with time…

"Plants being trampled… quick breathing…" said Tarahn, his hearing much more acute.

"Come on, then," she said, crawling out of the makeshift tent, the cougar pokémon following.

They walked out along the bank, Tarahn striding purposefully but silently, Moriko following, her boots sliding and clattering on the dry, rounded stones.

A green cervine pokémon burst out of the trees, wheezing in terror. Tarahn reacted immediately, cutting off his escape via the river. He swerved and tried to dart back the way he came, but another raigar appeared from the forest and leapt in front of him, growling. He made a short bellow of surprise and backed off, standing in the center of a triangle formed by Moriko and the two raigar. He watched the two raigar carefully as he snorted and wheezed, trying to get his breath back while watching for an escape and glancing at the trainer behind him.

The wild raigar was smaller and more lightly built than Tarahn, with longer claws and a darker pelt; Moriko noticed that she seemed to have more purple than Tarahn did—she had a few stripes of the color on the bridge of her nose, the sides of her face and possibly the base of her tail. She snarled angrily at the trainer and her pokémon.

"The mooskeg is mine, young one," she said coldly.

"The human is a trainer. If she wants the grass-type, she will have it," Tarahn replied, his tone just as icy. It was strange, hearing him speak like that; the raigar was normally so jocular and easy-going.

Moriko took advantage of the standoff by drawing out her pokédex.

"_Mooskeg_," it read, "_the moose pokémon. This grass and water type is found in both forested and swampy areas. While it is proficient at repelling predators while healthy, mooskeg that have just evolved and left their mothers often fall prey to hunters such as raigar and wintris. Evolves from hippocalf at level twenty._"

The mooskeg looked quite like an older moose calf, with little stumps where his antlers were developing and a dark mottled green coat, shading to a lighter green on his snout and lower legs. His short mane resembled a line of water-weeds grafted onto his neck and shoulders.

The female raigar's patience ran out suddenly, and she took a swipe at Tarahn, slicing his snout. The mooskeg took the opportunity to run for it as Tarahn dove at the female, snarling with rage.

Moriko swore and grabbed Rufus's pokéball off her belt, but he wouldn't be able to interfere in the fight without hurting himself or Tarahn. The two raigar were a hissing, spitting ball of yellow and purple; trying to physically separate them would be like sticking your arm into a food processor.

"Cut it out, you idiots!" she screamed, in frustration and fear for her pokémon.

Amazingly, the two cougar-like pokémon chose that moment to break apart and circle each other, ears flattened and teeth bared, bleeding from various superficial wounds. Their teeth and claws were wet with purplish venom that was totally useless against the other.

"You stupid male and your stupid human! I needed that kill! I—I have kittens!" the female said, shaking her head and swearing.

"Wait… what?" said Moriko. "Tarahn, back off…"

"Fucking humans! Only thinking of themselves," said the raigar bitterly, relaxing somewhat but keeping a wary eye on Tarahn.

"Listen, I'm sorry—"

"Save your breath, human, words fix nothing. Now, if you're done failing to control your tom, I have hunting to do," she announced, turning towards the forest.

"Wait, dammit, look, what if he helped you hunt? To make up for it?"

She whirled back around to face Moriko; her gaze was as cold as amethyst. "It was _your_ mistake, and you want your cohort to fix it for you? Humans are so _weak_!" she spat, with a mixture of amazement and scorn.

"_I_ stopped the mooskeg from crossing the river," snapped Tarahn, licking blood off his snout. "No command from her."

The female panted with rage before screeching exasperatedly, "do you think I'm _stupid_? Males kill kittens!"

A prolonged silence ensued.

"Kill… kittens? I would, I would never…" Tarahn managed to stammer, before trailing off in shock.

The female stared at him for a moment. "You caught him when he was young, didn't you?" she asked Moriko dully.

"Well… sort of—"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Tarahn snapped angrily.

"When you live with humans you become like them," the raigar said. She seemed to consider something before continuing, "I accept your penance. He will help me to find prey and make a kill, and once that has been accomplished he will leave and return to you. If he tries to follow me back to my den, I will kill him."

Moriko nodded. She didn't doubt that the female would be true to her word; she was smaller in stature than Tarahn, but older and of a higher level.

"That sounds acceptable to me. Tarahn?"

"Fine," he said, dully.

"Okay. Just a second," she said to the female raigar. She turned and walked back to the bags—not without a few surreptitious glances behind her—and extracted a super potion bottle.

She returned to the two pokémon, who were still eyeing each other suspiciously. Tarahn had more long rakes and scratches going through his fur, most of which were bleeding freely. He'd done rather less damage to his one-time opponent. She carefully applied the medicine to his wounds, and he made no noise aside from a harshly indrawn breath. The potion, she knew, rather stung, but the raigar's wounds closed up almost immediately.

"Will you be able to find us again?" she asked him quietly.

"I could find your scent a mile off," he muttered, "but I'll meet you in the next town if I have to."

"Okay. Good luck," she said, rising, and stroked his ear quickly.

She watched them lope away and disappear into the forest.

About an hour later, Russell and Matt returned to find Moriko dozing fretfully. She woke up as they approached the makeshift tent.

"Oh… hey. Any luck?"

"There's a nice shallow bit but it's a ways upstream," said Matt.

"As usual," she said with a groan, stretching.

"Yeah, it just gets worse downstream," said Russell. "Sylvia found a xyleon's den and nearly lost an eye. She had eevee pups."

Moriko nodded. Xyleon were the grass-type evolution of eevee, which required a leaf stone and a rare hold item called the jade claw to happen artificially. An eevee that reached maturity in a forested environment would evolve naturally, so they weren't especially rare in areas like this. Their ability to evolve to suit any environment had once made them quite common, but they had more or less been caught to extinction in the more populated regions. They were only available from breeders in places like Kanto and Johto. In Gaiien they were still common, but you needed a special license to catch one: an effort by the government to ensure they wouldn't become extinct, as in other regions.

"Where's your raigar?" asked Matt.

She recounted the story to them, finishing with, "…and the worst part was probably how I didn't even get to catch the mooskeg."

"That's a shame," Matt commented, "but at least you weren't mauled or anything."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Okay, well, we'd better get going, then. It's a bit of a walk to the ford," Matt announced, and they started to decamp.

x.x.x.x.x

Tarahn turned up again when they'd stopped for the night, looking wet, exhausted and with a nasty bite wound on his shoulder. After a half-bottle of super potion failed to close the gash, Matt took charge and made him lie by the fire, his head in his trainer's lap.  
"So… what happened?" she asked the raigar as she scratched under his jaw and stroked his ears. Matt was fiddling with the first-aid kit, trying to assemble supplies to stitch up the raigar's wound.

"Well…we slunk along the trails and checked ponds and things, looking for things to kill and she bitched at me a lot 'cause I made too much noise," he said, tiredly. "But we found this stantler herd and managed to slash up an old buck. Leleina broke his neck when the poison made him weak enough. I went too close too soon and he slashed me with his antler. She let me eat a bit before she told me to get lost." The moisture in his pelt was steaming off. "I had to cross a few streams, that's why I'm wet. She wasn't too bad, once you got to know her. Jus' wanted to protect her kittens…" He lapsed into silence, before asking, "Moriko? Did you know?"

"Did I know what?"

"That males"—he yawned—"that males kill kittens?"

"Yeah, I think I did," she whispered eventually, but he was already asleep, and didn't hear.

x.x.x.x.x

**(04/09/05)** **Edited very slightly. (22/01/06) Edited a little more.  
**

Sorry about the wait between chapters, everyone, but senior year's a bitch. You know how it is.

But anyway…please review! It's like a ray of light in my otherwise dreary world… -sniffle-

;D


	11. Chapter 10: Worrisome

Chapter 10: Worrisome

"_One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion._" - Voltaire

Verdure Town was set onto the side of a mountain; a cluster of hotels, restaurants and other assorted businesses providing goods and services to tourists at a considerable markup. Its randomly twisting streets, shaded by ancient, enormous trees, mostly served as paths for foot traffic, although one or two ground cars wove carefully through the crowds. The town was frequented by the rich and occasionally by the merely well-off all year round: it was the hub for an area good for backpacking, hiking, mountain biking and all-terrain vehicles in the summer, skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiles in the winter, and fishing, hunting and sightseeing all year 'round.

Verdure Town was unlike Umber Village in that trainers actually had a reason to linger there. They were easy to spot amongst the loud, opulent hordes of tourists, even without their backpacks: even the most boisterous trainer tended to withdraw and watch everything carefully, like a hunted animal. Just a week or two of hiking on travel rations tended to give people a slightly pinched, very tired look. Trotting down the street on her last reserve of energy, Moriko wondered if she looked the same, and realized she hadn't really properly studied herself in a mirror since leaving Port Littoral.

"Hey sexy! Want to battle?"

The three trainers turned to see another of their ilk, but definitely foreign: slicked-back hair, trendy clothes, shoes unsuitable for hiking. Four capture balls glinted on his designer trainer belt.

"Sexy? I think he's talking to you, Russ," said Moriko with a bit of a grin. As she nudged him forward, a few of the foreigner's friends giggled. Matt smirked.

The trainer reddened slightly, but looked amused all the same. "I meant _you_, sweet pea, but if you need your boyfriend to defend you, that's fine with me…"

It was Moriko's turn to redden. People were already forming a circle around the prospective battlers. "All right …what'll it be, then?" she said coolly, taking off her backpack and setting it on the ground.

"Two-on-two, no items, no time limit," the foreigner declared.

"One-on-one. My… other pokémon is injured," said Moriko, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"Make it a double battle then," Matt whispered to her, his hand on Björn's pokéball.

"I'll do this myself, thank you," she snapped back.

"…Okay, one-on-one then," said the other trainer. "Bet?"

"Careful…" Matt muttered. She took a step backwards and trod heavily on his foot, but he didn't even flinch.

"Five hundred."

The other trainer shrugged. "If you want to play for pennies, that's fine by me... my name's Austin, by the way."

"Moriko," she said with a curt nod.

"Nice to meet you, Moriko—I'm sure we could get along well, no matter who wins or who loses." He smirked, as if enjoying a private joke.

"...Creep," Moriko muttered to herself, pulling Rufus's pokéball off her belt.

"Go, Gigawatt!"

A yellow, striped pokémon that looked rather like an ape wearing a tiger's pelt appeared on the field, sparking with electricity. Moriko remembered the species; electabuzz, they called it. It would've been nice to use Tarahn for this match, but she had to work with what she had.

"Go, Rufus!"

The fire-type bull materialized in a burst of red light. Realizing he was on a battlefield, he bellowed and pawed the ground, his mane and tail flaring. Like most open-flame pokémon, he could control his fires: they would burn only when he wanted them to. At this moment, the ambient temperature rose quickly and the circle of spectators widened even more than it had for the electabuzz.

"Gigawatt, thunderpunch!"

"Take down, Rufus."

The electabuzz sprang into action, running at the fire-type bull with his fists crackling with electrical energy. Rufus managed to accelerate to a trot before hitting the electric-type head-on, with a small burst of flame as an added effect. The electabuzz went flying; Rufus shook his head, dizzy and twitching a bit after receiving an electric punch right to the forehead. Gigawatt did a backflip after hitting the ground and was rapidly back on his feet.

"You all right, Rufus?" called Moriko. He grunted by way of reply. "Okay. Flame wheel!"

"Light screen," said Austin, sounding almost bored.

Flames wreathed around Rufus's body as the electabuzz crouched and positioned his forearms in an X in front of his face. The crowd pushed back even further as some of the stone cobbles underneath the fire-type's hooves started to glow. Abruptly, the flames around Rufus's body coalesced into a fiery sphere and shot directly at Gigawatt.

The light screen reduced the intensity of the attack by about half, but the electabuzz still sported a few burnt patches in his fur.

"Gigawatt, screech!"

"Rufus, try another take down."

The electabuzz stood at one end of the makeshift arena as Rufus used most of the perimeter to accelerate to a gallop and charge the electric-type, horns first. At about the halfway point, Gigawatt began to emit an excruciating noise, both in pitch and volume; almost everyone watching flinched and put their hands over their ears. Rufus faltered for a few steps before accelerating even faster and hitting him in the stomach. The screech attack dropped its pitch into a scream of pain from the electabuzz, which melded into the enraged bellow from Rufus as he was knocked back, hooves in the air and his side scraping along the cobbles.

"What the _hell_?" breathed Moriko as Rufus struggled to stand and the electabuzz panted on all fours, bleeding from the twin gouges in his abdomen.

"Cross chop," Matt muttered.

"Basic strategy," said Austin, "after a screech attack, Gigawatt knows he should use cross chop. Nice to get the drop on your opponent sometimes, eh?"

"Rufus is favoring his left front leg," Matt whispered to her. "I bet something's fractured."

"Quit helping me! I have eyes," she snapped, but she hadn't noticed until Matt had said something.

"Let's finish this," declared Austin. "Thunderbolt!"

"Rufus, ret—"

She didn't get to finish the command as Rufus opened his mouth and let fly with a flurry of embers. It wasn't the strongest of attacks, but it was all that was needed to knock Gigawatt unconscious. Rufus collapsed onto his side, wheezing in pain, but he was still, technically, able to battle.

"Rufus, return," she said, quickly, the dreamlike state of pokéball confinement definitely preferable to whatever he was feeling now.

"Return," said Austin, victory snatched away from him at the last second. He looked distinctly disappointed as he walked up to her and thrust a few bills in her direction without really looking. "Good battle," he managed before walking off with his group.

"Bit of a sore loser…" she commented, shoving the money into a pocket.

"Well, I guess you were lucky," said Matt. "But it was a close thing."

"He was probably embarrassed, since you beat him in front of his friends," said Russell reasonably.

"Come on, we'd better get to the pokémon center; I've got two invalids now," she said, turning and continuing up the road.

x.x.x.x.x

"You really shouldn't have made your pokémon keep battling like that—"

"There wasn't any _keep._ The electabuzz used cross chop, I was about to recall Rufus, he used ember and ended the battle. I wasn't making him walk on bloody stumps, for godssake."

The attendant frowned. "Your volbine had a fractured scapula and cracked ribs. As his trainer, it is your responsibility—"

Moriko's temper spiraled rapidly out of control. "You're godsdamned right it's my responsibility! That's why I brought him right over here, instead of, say, pottering around and eating, maybe having a shower like I've been waiting a fortnight to do! Instead I get some godsdamn trainee telling me I'm a horrible person! Give me my pokémon back!"

"He had—he had multiple skeletal injuries—"

"Which a restoration machine fixes in a few minutes! _What is the problem here?_"

"I'm—I'm going to take down your trainer number and report you for—for abuse," stuttered the attendant.

"Oh really? Then you'd better tell me what inner-city community college you flunked out of, you miserable heap of offal!"

"I—"

"Glenn, that's enough," said the senior attendant, coming over and muttering something to him. "Sorry about that," she said, nodding to Moriko as Glenn walked away. "He means well, but he can get a bit over-excited when he doesn't know the whole story. Not much experience with higher-level battle injuries," she added.

"I'm not going to be reported for abuse, then?" she replied, dryly, her anger cooling as the offending intern disappeared into the back.

"No, I'm thinking not," said the attendant. "Now, which pokéballs are yours?"

"There should be two in a tray," said Moriko, standing on the tips of her toes to see over the high counter. "One has a fire sticker on it."

"Here you are," she said, handing Moriko the two pokéballs. "And again, I apologize for my employee's behavior."

"It's okay. It's just been a long time since I had a proper sleep," said Moriko.

Matt and Russell grinned at her as she walked into the lounge.

"Spot o' trouble, Mor?" asked Russell.

"A wee bit," she replied, mimicking his random affectation.

"We could hear you from in here, but not whoever you were yelling about," said Matt.

"It was nothing, just this dumbass attendant who thought that I was an abusive trainer," she said, flopping down heavily onto the couch next to them.

"He probably thought Rufus's injuries were stress fractures," said Matt. "Trainees—I hear trainees make that mistake sometimes."

"I'm glad he didn't think Tarahn's shoulder wound was due to a knife or something, I guess," she said, staring up at the ceiling. "He threatened to report me for abuse…"

"Did he?" said Russell.

"The senior attendant came over and apologized, so I guess not…"

"I bet they'll be watching you, though," said Matt.

She looked over at him, and there wasn't a trace of facetiousness to be found in his eyes or expression.

"So anyway," said Russell, "there's a bit of a problem with the rooms."

"Problem?" said Moriko.

"Well, first of all, there's only one room. Two beds, no extra cots or anything," said Matt.

"So someone's going to have to share, aren't they?" said Moriko, trying not to grin.

"Well, yes—"

"Well it's not going to be me. Sharing a bed with some guy? People would talk."

Matt and Russell glanced at each other before shifting to opposite ends of their couch.

"I hear sleeping in the bathtub is actually pretty comfortable," said Matt, avoiding Moriko's gaze.

"Someone could take a bunch of blankets and make their own bed in a corner somewhere," said Russell, studying his hiking boots.

Moriko smirked. "As much as I'm enjoying this, how about we just push the beds together and sleep in our sleeping bags? I think that would probably work."

Russell and Matt visibly relaxed.

"I think I could deal with that," said Russell.

"So did you turn in that poor sod's stuff?" asked Moriko quietly. Some of Russell's color faded, even though the memory of the dead trainer was almost a week old.

Matt's face didn't betray any emotion, although his grip on one of the couch's arms seemed to tighten. "Yeah, I gave her the full description and his GPS coordinates. I asked her who the pokémon go to and she said they usually send them to a local professor or the gym leader."

"What were his pokémon, again?" Matt had checked the contents of the pokéballs with his pokédex, but she'd forgotten to ask what was inside.

"He had a clawbit and a murkrow," said Matt. He smiled ruefully and added, "I confess I kind of wanted the murkrow."

"Heh, yeah, you were getting pretty mad when they kept flying away before," said Moriko.

"How's your dirfox, Russell?" asked Matt, shifting his weight.

The dirfox Russell had caught was incredibly nervous, twitching and flinching whenever someone, human or pokémon, tried to speak to him. Sylvia managed to get the fox pokémon to calm down somewhat, even though she'd assisted in his capture, but still couldn't get him to divulge any sort of information about himself. "I'm planning to call Professor Willow and ask about him," said Russell.

"Yeah, good idea…"

"Gentlemen," said Moriko, "I would like to call your attention to the fact that I am currently in possession of our room key."

"And?" said Matt.

"Ergo, the shower is _mine_! Ahahahahaha!"

x.x.x.x.x

Russell fed a few coins into the video phone before sitting down and typing in Professor Willow's number. A few lines of greenish code scrolled out on the black screen as the yellow 'connecting' icon flashed. It suddenly switched to the blue 'connected' symbol and the screen was replaced by a view of Professor Willow's lab.

"Yes, yes, what?" she snapped, flopping down in front of the screen. Upon realizing who was calling, her expression changed from one of annoyance to embarrassment. "Russell! I'm sorry, I didn't know it was you. How've you been?"

He smiled at the perpetually harried professor. "Pretty good, as are Matt and Moriko."

"That's great! Where are you calling from?"

"Verdure Town. It's pretty nice, but it's busy. Matt says the gym leader trains grass-types, so I'm probably going to have to look into catching another pokémon."

"Have you just got your cayvine, still?"

"We met up with some ranchers and they gave me a celestiule egg, and after that I caught this dirfox which is why—"

"Hold on, hold on, a celestiule egg?" the professor's brow wrinkled as she tried to decipher this. "But grimass and nimbval are so similar that their mating results in a live birth…"

"It's actually an egg mothered by a celestiule. They weren't sure who sired it."

"Really, that's pretty rare…celestiule are supposed to be sterile, but I think I remember hearing of it happening once. Yes, I think I was reading Professor Alder—"

"Professor? There was actually a reason why I called you."

"Oh, you mean you didn't just want to chat?" Professor Willow feigned emotional injury. "Just kidding. What is it?"

"I caught this dirfox, but he's really…I don't know, really jittery, kind of neurotic. I was wondering if you could have a look at him and find out what's wrong."

Professor Willow looked pensive for a moment. "That's odd…all right, ask the attendant to send him over to me, my transport ID is one-six-double oh-nine, and then call me tomorrow, I'll probably have it figured out them."

"Okay, lovely, thanks professor," said Russell.

She must've hit the 'end' command as the screen rapidly went black. As he glanced at the red 'connection terminated' icon in the corner of the screen, he felt a vague sense of unease.

_He really fought hard against being captured, didn't he?_ said Sylvia.

x.x.x.x.x

Matt sighed, curling into a ball underneath the covers. He hated the cold feeling, like there was a draft against his soul. She…yes, _she'd_ said it would gradually become more frequent, until he felt like that all the time. Oh yes, and she with her empty promises knew how to fix it. Well, that was just too bad. The fight had cost him too much already. Far too much.

He felt the tears coming and willed them back. No, none of that, none of that. There just wasn't enough distraction here to keep him from thinking about it. He'd be able to drive himself to exhaustion if he was alone, but the others wouldn't be able to handle it. Exhausted, dreamless sleep… how he missed it.

How he missed her.

There, you've gone and done it again, he thought angrily, shutting his eyes tightly. If you start weeping like a child, and someone sees…well, then you'll have to explain and that'll be the end. So stop it.

Stop it…

x.x.x.x.x

As much as she really didn't mind being dirty or unwashed, really, there was something oddly satisfying about having clean, light hair, not greasy or flecked with mud.

Moriko ran her hands through her forest green mane, combing it with her fingers in place of a brush.

"Ten days to Verdure Town, eh Matt?" she muttered to herself in the approximate privacy of the bathroom. "It was fourteen, and we even got to ride those grimass part of the way." She frowned, gently teasing out a particularly stubborn knot. "What're your qualifications anyway? Maybe he just gets off on feeling like he knows so much more than other people…"

((It's possible. And quit lookin',)) Tarahn added as she glanced down at him; she had her translator off, but she was pleased to note that she wasn't too out-of-practice at understanding him—more or less—without it. The raigar was grooming himself on the floor beside her; she didn't know if his… well, 'modesty' was just feigned or something he'd actually picked up from his association with humans.

"I can't see anything, you know. I'm blinded by the yellowness."

((Yeah, well, you know you can't resist my feline charm. Can you fill the sink up for me?))

"I filled the ice bucket with water for a reason, you silly thing."

((Oh, right. Can you open the door then?))

She reached over and twisted the knob, the door swinging smoothly on its hinges. The raigar padded out, his purple-tufted tail twitching lazily behind him. She shoved her toothbrush and toothpaste back into their bag before leaving the bathroom.

The pokécenter room was already a mess; their bags had been left haphazardly in various parts of the room, and clothing was already strewn around. Matt had stripped down to his boxers, leaving a rumpled assortment of clothes on the floor, and had cocooned himself in the hotel blankets on one of the beds. Russell was back from using the video phone and had tried to watch a little television before succumbing to fatigue: the TV was on with the volume turned down almost all the way, and he was curled up on his side, the remote control still sitting in his loose grasp.

Moriko shook her head, biting back a laugh. _What a piece of work is a man…_

She walked over to the TV and was about to hit the power button when she caught a snatch of what the newscaster was saying.

"…the body found outside of Porphyry City was finally identified…"

_What? Body?_ Moriko switched from the power to the volume button, turning it up a bit.

"…a young woman named Cassandra Williams, a tourist from Celadon City in Kanto. Her body was found on the outskirts of Porphyry a week ago, but was too horribly mutilated to positively identify…"

She turned it off.

Porphyry City, eh? City of a thousand delights, legal and otherwise?

She shook her head. Get in, get the badge, get out. As quickly as possible.

"Russ? Russ," she said, touching his shoulder gently before rapidly progressing to shaking it.

"Mmmwhat?" he said, blinking sleepily.

"Your turn," she said, nodding in the direction of the bathroom.

"Oh, thanks." He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, massaging his eyes tiredly. "I was just resting my eyes."

"Yeah, which is why you were drooling onto your pillow," said Moriko, smirking.

"Lies," said Russell, trying to covertly dry his chin with his shoulder.

"Whatever. Moriko sleep now," she announced, walking around the bed and flopping down on the other side.

He rolled his eyes and flipped the half of the blankets he'd been lying on over her. She drew the sheets close around herself and gave a tired sigh.

"You're just lucky you smell nice. Remind me to steal more of your clothes," she muttered.

"Yeah, right." He took off his shirt—which smelt like sweat, he couldn't see what was so nice about it—and nearly dropped it on the raigar, but snatched it back out of the air at the last instant.

((Lucky kid, you might've been a dead man for a second there,)) said Tarahn, his purple and yellow muzzle wet from its immersion in his makeshift water dish.

"Sorry, Sparky," he said, leaning against the wall to remove his socks as well.

The raigar snorted at the use of his old nickname. ((You're just jealous because your orange fuzz can't compare to my luxurious pelt.))

"Yeah, because shaving isn't enough trouble already," Russell answered sarcastically, dropping his cargo shorts onto the pile.

((You know you love me. Rub my belly?)) said Tarahn, rolling onto his back.

"You're such a slut," said Russell, shaking his head, but grinning all the same.

((I'm a cat. What do you expect?))

x.x.x.x.x

Moriko wandered along the streets of Verdure Town, Tarahn trailing close behind her. She glanced in shop windows, at pointless souvenirs and at overpriced clothing, and almost walked into a chocolatier, but managed to curb that particular desire. It took longer than she'd thought for the real purpose of her wandering to be realized.

"Hey, want to have a battle?"

Moriko couldn't tell if the girl was a local or a tourist. Her curly blue hair was drawn back in a ponytail with a few fronds framing her face, and she was about average height and stocky. Her celery-colored eyes sat behind designer frames, but her jeans looked like they'd been inherited from an older brother. She was flanked by a white pokémon with a blue-black face, claws and bladelike single horn and tail.

"Yeah, sure," said Moriko, a bit absently as she tried to remember what the girl's pokémon was. "Just one-on-one."

The girl nodded. "No bet, no items sound all right to you?"

Moriko nodded as well. She still felt uncomfortable risking money on a battle, especially in a tourist town like this one where there was no way of knowing how powerful an opponent was before you battled them.

"Great. I'm Thera, if you care."

"Moriko. Are you from around here?" she asked as they moved out away from the shops, more into the middle of the street.

"No, I'm from Slateport City in Hoenn, actually. My family's here for a vacation."

Moriko smiled. "You don't seem that pleased about it. Let me guess: you like to enjoy your summer holidays at home?"

Thera smiled slightly. "I wanted to continue getting badges, actually. I've got three Hoenn badges from last summer and I wanted to get two or three more, but I got dragged out here for two weeks. Puts a bit of a damper on my plans."

"You should catch some pokémon while you're here, maybe. I'm actually on the badge quest currently."

Thera blinked, almost incredulously. "Really? I heard the league here has the highest mortality rate of any in the world! Doesn't that worry you?"

_There was a body on the road…_ Moriko shook her head, as much to indicate the negative as to try to dislodge the image that had surfaced in her mind. "Well…maybe a little bit, but I've got my pokémon and a couple of fri—er, traveling buddies."

Thera shrugged. "Well, you're a lot braver than I am."

_Or maybe just a lot less intelligent,_ Moriko thought. A few people had noticed them by this time and were forming a sparse circle in anticipation of the battle.

"Anyway, shall we begin? I'm guessing it'll be my absol against your big cat."

_Absol__, that's what it was called…_ "Yep. Tarahn's a raigar, for future reference."

Tarahn and the absol had moved in front of their respective trainers and were facing each other, the raigar's purple eyes meeting the absol's red ones. The absol was taller at the shoulder than Tarahn, but he probably weighed twenty or thirty pounds more than her.

"All right. Jihen, use swords dance."

"Tarahn, poison claw."

The absol executed a quick spin, her single horn and claws glowing. Tarahn landed on her like a furry ball of knives, his claws tearing into her white fur and leaving blood and purplish venom in their wake. Jihen snarled angrily and retaliated with a slash attack, made more powerful by the swords dance she'd just performed. The raigar roared and backed off, his belly leaking blood. The absol, however, had been poisoned.

"Jihen, use façade."

"Oh sh—spark, quickly!"

The façade attack was interesting in that its power increased when the user developed a status condition. Coming from an absol who'd used swords dance, it would be devastating. The two pokémon leapt and seemed to ricochet off each other with a thud and a burst of electricity. They both skidded to a stop on the cobbles, but while Tarahn managed to haul himself painfully to his feet, Jihen remained prone, her narrow chest rising and falling almost desperately.

Thera looked merely disappointed as she took out an ultra ball and recalled her pokémon, but Moriko thought she could see a hint of worry. The absol was converted to yellow energy, leaving behind streaks and droplets of blood.

"I think you'd better go back in your ball," Moriko muttered to Tarahn.

"Sure," he said, leaving off trying to lick his stomach, which was bleeding freely. A second later he turned into bright red energy, which disappeared into his rather worn pokéball.

"Good battle," said Thera with slightly forced civility as they shook hands.

"You did well, considering my level advantage," said Moriko. Tarahn was probably several levels higher than the absol.

"Thanks. Good luck on your quest," said Thera.

"Yours too."

x.x.x.x.x

By the time Matthew and Russell returned from wild pokémon-hunting, it was nearly eleven o' clock at night and Moriko would've been completely unconscious were it not for her nap that afternoon and the caffeinated beverages she'd been drinking while watching the news.

"What happened to you two?" she asked as they wandered into the room. The male trainers sported a number of bandages on their arms and faces. Matt kicked off his boots and flopped down on the other bed; Russell glanced at himself in the bathroom mirror before sitting on the edge of the bed Moriko was sitting on. There was a flash of red light as Maia let herself out of her pokéball and began to lick Matt's face; he sat up to try to escape this treatment.

"Seriously, you guys," Moriko said, impatiently, muting the television.

"Okay," began Russell, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. "So we went out walking and looking for pokémon. We found a stantler herd after about an hour and I caught a male."

"I've already got Björn so I didn't need really need another normal-type," commented Matt, as Maia continued to try to groom him.

"But Matt still needed another pokémon so we kept looking. And looking."

"And looking, and looking," Matt continued miserably.

"And then it was really starting to get dark, so we decided we'd better head back. It was shortly after that point that we realized we were lost."

"My fault."

"Yeah, probably," said Russell absently. "Anyway, we just pulled out our GPS modules and figured out which direction the town was in and started walking."

"Which took us right into a murkrow grove," added Matt.

"You're kidding," said Moriko.

"My pecked, scratched upper torso says 'no'," said Matt dryly as he stroked Maia's soft but nearly furless ears.

"So Matt pulls out both Björn and Maia, and I pull out the stantler even though I haven't really met him yet and we try to fight our way out."

"We were kind of winning for a little while but then we found out the leader of the flock—"

"The murder," corrected Russell.

"That's right, the most powerful member of the, heh, murder of murkrow was a ravener."

While most murkrow lived out their lives without evolving, an individual might attain the species' second stage, ravener, through significant stress or pain. The evolution was very rarely seen in the more urban regions, since there were abundant opportunities for scavenging, especially in the cities. In areas like Gaiien, where the competition was far more acute, the evolution could give the pokémon an extra edge, but it still wasn't that commonly seen. Like most pokémon evolutions not dependent on leveling, there was most likely an 'instant' way to make it occur, but as to exactly that was, pokémon professors were still researching.

Ravener had distinctive, piercing red eyes and were entirely black except for the weird, blood-red symbols on the underside of their wings.

"So what happened then?"

"The evil bastard knocked out Björn with a drill peck, which annoyed Maia so she treated him to an icy fang attack. We would've been totally screwed if it hadn't frozen him, though," said Matt.

"Did you catch him?"

Matt pointed wordlessly to his trainer belt, which was sporting a new super ball.

"Not bad," commented Moriko.

"So what did you do in our absence?" asked Russell.

"I pined for you guys—"

"For about a second, right?" said Matt, pushing Maia's muzzle away from him again.

"Even less. Then I went walking around and fought a couple trainers."

"Were the battles any good?" asked Russell.

"Tarahn fought this one girl's absol but it was pretty quick and dirty, because of Tarahn's level advantage. He took some bad hits, though; it might have gone her way if Tarahn missed an attack."

"Makes sense, absol are crazy strong, but their defensive stats aren't that great," commented Russell.

"Oh really? Anyway, second battle: some older guy challenged me later and his arcanine totally destroyed Rufus."

"Man, I hate when that happens…older trainers shouldn't take advantage of people like that," said Matt. "Did you bet anything?"

"Luckily no, I felt kind of apprehensive because the guy looked about forty or so. I pulled out my pokédex after and the arcanine was about level fifty."

Russell and Matt groaned in sympathy. "Ohh, what a bastard," said Matt.

"Maybe he thought you looked like a really experienced trainer or something," said Russell.

"Well, I didn't lose any money to him so I'm willing to suspend judgment," said Moriko. "D'you two think you're ready for the gym then?"

"We'd better take an hour or so to smooth things out with the new pokémon, but I think we're good to go," said Russell.

"Yeah, that's about right," commented Matt.

"Oh good. On another note, you guys might want to take a look at this one news story they keep talking about…"

x.x.x.x.x

**(04/09/05)** **Edited slightly. (20/01/06) Further editing.  
**

School is t3h sux. Check out the scrapbook section at my website to see some doodles of Gaiien pokémon if you haven't already.

There was an anonymous review (which later vanished o.O) that mocked me because Trevor Linden is the name of a hockey player…whoops. I do that a lot, I bet: I just put down names that I've heard and retain somewhere in my mind but don't recall whom they belong to. Oh well.


	12. Chapter 11: A Gathering Storm

Chapter 11: A Gathering Storm

"_Life is the childhood of our immortality._" - Goethe

"Now, really… that's just disappointing."

"I _know_. She just looked at me! Didn't even scream or anything."

"_No_, I mean the fact that you just left her body where anyone could find it, and they did."

"Oh, right. Well, I lost interest."

"Obviously."

He sighs, drawing up his legs to sit cross-legged on the end of the bed. His naked chest and back are covered with a tracery of scars; some puncture wounds, others long and jagged, some old, others…less so. His long dreadlocked hair is dark gray, reaching past his shoulders, with the last two inches or so colored a vivid purple. He puts his head into his hands—hands with fingers that have been broken or dislocated too many times to count—with another sigh, his thick dreadlocks falling forward, sliding off his shoulders.

"Whatever will I do with you?"

"I could say the same about you, kid," says the red-haired man, abandoning his momentary ennui. He stretches, awkwardly sprawled out on a plush armchair. A banette, with its distinctive zippered mouth, sits on the high back of the chair, playing with a dead clawbit kitten.

"I know. Who is watching over whom, I wonder?"

He watches the man in the armchair as he reaches up and takes the clawbit corpse from the banette, and as he crushes it in one hand, savouring every delicate snap as the tiny bones break one by one. As he abruptly loses interest and tosses the carcass back to the pokémon, the dreadlocked man detects a certain disappointment in the other that the clawbit is no longer alive.

He'd never got much pleasure out of causing mere physical pain, as the red-haired one enjoyed doing. The progression was far too predictable.

Eventually he straightens his posture, turning to the object floating beside him. It resembles a mirror or a glass sheet, but does not reflect the room around it. On its surface is a grisly scene that abruptly fades as the man on the bed waves a hand idly. It is replaced by an inky void in which a sand-colored spirit seems to float, its jet-black eyes the same color as the void around it. "It seems the pilgrimage has been resurrected," he continues, staring at the mirror-like pokémon. "Mirronos," he says, addressing it, "show us Siegg."

The mirronos turns slowly in the air to face the fire-haired one, who smiles as soon as he realizes what is pictured on the pokémon's glass-like surface. The banette looks up from the mangled clawbit corpse, mirroring its master's avid interest.

"Oh my," the red-haired man says, smiling. "How convenient."

He smirks slightly; it would be hard for an onlooker to decide which is the more sinister, the expression of pure, animal hunger of the man in the armchair or the look of amused boredom on the face of the man on the bed. "You'll still have to be careful, obviously, but I think you may be able to have your fun."

x.x.x.x.x

The three of them had slept for ten hours after watching the regional news. They were worrisome, the two murders. Several hundred kilometers apart, but both were linked in that they involved gross mutilations. The thought that something like that could happen to a traveler or a trainer was…unsettling.

Matt was disgusted at their late rising, but they'd forgotten to set the alarm clock, the three of them still profoundly tired after their fourteen-day trek.

At breakfast Moriko was surprised to see Angela, David, Mackenzie and Victoria sitting at one of the tables, looking somewhat subdued. She felt a slightly masochistic impulse to engage them in conversation; Matt and Russell said they'd seen the four checking in to the 'center when they returned from their excursion.

They'd eaten and trotted down to the gym, but it did not open until twelve. The three elected to spend some time letting their pokémon have a run in a wide, tree-shaded park across the walkway. The sky was bright blue and cloudless; the air surprisingly cool, possessing a certain purity that was not as obvious later in the day.

After roughhousing a bit, Moriko and Russell's pokémon eventually joined Matt's ursaring underneath a large oak. They knew a gym battle was less than an hour away, and it would be best to conserve their energy.

"So, what's your name?" Tarahn genially asked the newly-caught stantler; he yawned, flexing his claws and exposing his fangs.

The deer-like pokémon was clearly nervous in the company of so many carnivores; his herd instincts had compelled him to sit near Rufus, who was another herbivore, if not the right species.

"Uh…Keigan."

"How do you feel about being caught so far?" asked Sylvia, pausing her roll in the grass.

"It's…all right, I guess. I don't _feel_ like a slave." The stantler looked at her with a mix of dislike and apprehension; she'd weakened him enough to make him vulnerable to the pokéball that had snared him.

"You're not. Where'd you get that idea?" asked Rufus.

"Everyone knows trainers are like that," said the stantler, looking around and realizing he was probably in the company of the insane.

"Well, maybe some are, but most are pretty decent," Sylvia insisted.

"But if you want to go back that badly, tell Russell and he'll let you go," said Tarahn.

"Well... he seems nice, but I doubt he'd do that," said Keigan dourly.

"Give it some time. If you can't stand it, he'll release you," said Sylvia. She was getting annoyed with his pessimistic attitude, but tried to be kind all the same.

"What's going on over here?" asked Maia, padding over.

"Playing Meet-the-New-Guy," said Tarahn, trying to conceal his amusement at Keigan's heightened discomfort with the addition of a fourth predator.

"What were you doing over with the trainers?" asked Rufus, curious.

"I was supervising while Matthew met with his newest pokémon. He was concerned he would be less than amiable," she replied lightly.

"Was he?" queried Tarahn, with a bit of a grin.

"He told Matthew to give him one good reason why he shouldn't peck out his eyes."

"By the lack of screaming, I'm guessing your illustrious trainer still has complete sight," replied the raigar wryly. "So he convinced him?"

"Matthew reminded him that he had been captured; thus, I, and by extension, Matthew, was stronger than him. Therefore, he was not fit to lead his flock, if he himself could be defeated by a human. Matthew went on to explain to the bird that if he spent some time with him, he would train him to be stronger than he could imagine. If he then wished to return to his flock, he would be able to defend the flock against any foe. When the ravener realized the extent of the good a trainer could do for him, he decided to cooperate."

"Huh. So he tamed a ravener?" asked Tarahn, with the tone equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

"Not tamed," grunted Björn, surprising them all. "Conciliated. For now."

x.x.x.x.x

"Huh. Not disfigured, I see?"

Matt sat down on the park bench next to Moriko and dried his palms—damp with nervous sweat—on his khaki cargoes. "No, I got out of that one with both eyes and all my fingers, thank the gods."

"Where'd you learn how to do that?"

Matt blinked, looking at Russell for a wordless instant before shrugging idly. "I'm just persuasive, I guess."

"I hope I can pull it off when I have to appease a dangerous pokémon," Moriko said, staring up at the sky.

"You probably will. It's amazing how eloquent you can become when the situation hinges on something important." Matt ran a hand through his hair. "I was just worried that Badbyax was a libertarian."

"A libertarian? What?" Moriko associated the word more with a human political stance; it didn't really work when applied to a pokémon.

"Oh…it's a behavioral or personality class for pokémon. It's essentially non-existent amongst bred pokémon, but merely rare in the wild." Matt paused, shifting his weight on the bench. "It refers to a pokémon who absolutely needs to be free. Even if you immerse them in luxury, every need or want provided for, even if they think you're an amazing person and love you like a sibling, the knowledge that they are still a 'prisoner' drives them crazy. You're best off releasing a pokémon like that, because you won't be able to keep them."

"Have you ever seen a pokémon like that?" asked Russell.

"I have," said Matt. "A wild-caught charizard in a zoo. He was nearly insane, couldn't sleep, refused to eat. When they finally released him it was almost too late. Pretty bad." He shrugged. "I think it's usually flying pokémon that are most keenly affected."

Moriko examined a lock of her hair, somewhat bored; it was primarily dark green, but she could sometimes find strands of different colors, like blue or blonde. "Do you know any other personality classes?"

Matt frowned slightly as he tried to remember. "Well, let's see…okay, first, there's the warrior. Basically, a pokémon that loves to fight. It'll suffer you as master as long as you keep the battles coming. Next…right, the mercenary: a pokémon that will fight for you as long as you reward it with something. Then there's the pokémon that listens to you because you happen to be providing it with the best deal at that time, the…opportunist, that's it. The last one I can think of is what they call the 'apathetic', the pokémon who really doesn't care. It'll do whatever you tell it."

"Wow…they all sound a little…grim, I guess," said Moriko, going over her pokémon in her mind and not feeling like they felt into any of the classes Matt had listed.

"Those ones mostly pertain to pokémon you've just caught, before you form any emotional bond with them," said Matt, shrugging. He massaged the bridge of his nose. "There's actually quite a few more, I'd have to find the book again though, because I don't really remember any others. One of Professor Alder's books, I think…"

"Alder…Professor Willow mentioned something about him when I was talking to her. She thought she'd read something about celestiule eggs in one of his papers," Russell mentioned.

"It's possible. I think he's done research on pretty much everything. All the analysts agree that he's absolutely brilliant," said Matt. "They were praising him as the new Oak, last I heard, for his work on pokémon speech."

"What were his findings in that particular treatise? Do you know?" asked Russell.

"No, I just read an article about it…it was published a few months ago, but I never had time to find a copy. Anyway, it centered around all pokémon, psychic or not, having at least a very basic form of telepathy…or something to that effect."

"Why don't we see if there's a library here? Maybe they've got it," Moriko suggested, glancing around in case it was within sight.

"That's…actually, not such a bad idea," said Matthew. He checked his watch. "Hey, it's 12:05…why don't we beat the gym leader into a pulp and then check it out after?"

x.x.x.x.x

Verdure Town's grass-type gym had been constructed with plant-based pokémon in mind. Its first half, the south wing, was an enormous greenhouse containing what appeared to be at least one specimen of every plant in the world. A small reception desk was slightly off to the side of the entrance, at which sat a prim secretary typing away at a computer, dwarfed completely by the enormous maple behind her. Red brick paths stretched away from the semicircle-shaped entranceway, weaving through the thick greenery. The air was somewhat humid, simulating an environment not unlike the one they'd left behind in Port Littoral. There was the sound of trickling water, somewhere in the mass of trees and scrubs and climbing vines, interspersed by the occasional birdcall.

"Can I help you?" said the secretary, eventually, breaking them out of their collective, admiring reverie.

"Uh…yeah. We're here to challenge the gym leader," said Matt.

"Go right in, then," she said, dismissive, resuming her typing.

"May I ask you which path is the quickest to take?" said Russell. The greenery was so thick that the five or six different walkways seemed to be doorways leading to other worlds.

"No, you may not. That's the point."

x.x.x.x.x

"Gyms often have puzzles that trainers have to solve before they can fight the leader," said Matt a few minutes later, as they wandered along a randomly selected path with nothing to guide them. "But usually you see them at higher levels, so this is a bit odd," he continued, scratching the back of his head as if genuinely confused.

They went over a number of bridges crossing artificial streams, boots thumping on the wood, and passed a number of decorative koi ponds. One such pond contained a number of water plants that, upon closer inspection, proved to be a collection of lotad, a grass and water-type pokémon, common to both Hoenn and Gaiien. A few of the forks they took terminated in a circular space with a number of iron-wrought benches.

After about ten minutes of wandering, they finally came to a pair of sliding glass doors, which opened smoothly as they came close. Beyond the doors was a medium-sized rectangular arena with bleachers on either side and platforms at either end that would probably rise and lower depending on the battle.

"So nice of you three to join me. How'd you like my maze?" The speaker was a young man, crossing the arena to join them. He was about average height, with longish sea-green hair, was dressed in a blue t-shirt with white at the collar and sleeves, knee-length black shorts and hiking boots.

"Pretty, certainly, but not an excruciating challenge," said Matt, smirking slightly.

"I value the aesthetic quality of my greenhouse as much as the confounding, so I shall take that as a compliment," he responded, smiling pleasantly. "Call me Thorn. I'm the gym leader here in Verdure Town, and if you haven't figured it out already, I use the grass-type. Who wants to go first?"

"I will," said Matt, volunteering immediately. "Matthew Sleet, by the way."

_Same as the gym in Umber Village,_ Moriko thought to herself. _Either he wants to get it over with, or he wants to…maybe, let us see how the leader battles? Why would he do that?_

"That's great," Thorn was saying. "Is two-on-two all right?"

"Sure." Matt nodded.

"Okay. No items, no time limit, switches allowed. Shall we?"

Matt wandered over to the near end of the arena as Thorn trotted to his end. Matt stepped onto the trainer's box and hit a switch, the platform rising to elevate him by about six feet. Thorn did the same thing, buckling on a dark green trainer's belt as he rose.

"Select your pokémon!" bellowed a referee in the League black and purple, whose sudden appearance startled Moriko slightly.

In the interest of fairness, the two trainers tossed capture balls into the arena at the same time.

"Go, Badbyax!"

"Go, Kaseter!"

The ravener materialized with a flash of blue light and a throaty caw, easily flying in place. He was a large bird, his black feathers showing their luster under the arena lights; he had his back to her, so she couldn't see the weird rune-like markings on the undersides of his wings. The gym leader's choice was a venusaur, the last stage of one of Kanto's celebrated starter pokémon. He blinked wide eyes as a few of his vines snaked out, almost of their own accord.

"Use wing attack," said Matt.

"Sleep powder, Kas."

The venusaur shook his leaves, releasing a large cloud of bluish-gray powder. Badbyax paid it no attention, flying through and striking Kaseter with both an outstretched wing and the misleadingly named 'cushion' of air that accompanied such flying-type attacks.

Thorn laughed suddenly, seeing this. "I forgot about ravener's insomnia ability! I can't believe it!"

Matt shrugged. "You can't be perfect all the time, I guess. Drill peck."

"Body slam!"

The ravener launched himself at his foe, spinning rapidly. Kaseter growled and leapt forward, moving faster than his bulk might lead one to believe. There was a sharp cracking noise like a whip, and Badbyax was knocked back by the force behind the blow. A few of his feathers littered the arena like dark scraps of cloth, but the venusaur now sported a large puncture wound in his forehead which was bleeding dark ichor freely.

"Finish him off," said Matt, almost sounding a little disappointed.

Badbyax cawed scornfully and used what looked like wing attack again, scraping along the venusaur's right side and slicing the tips off a few leaves. Kaseter tried to slap at the bird with his vines, but Badbyax paid them no attention. The venusaur gave a bass groan and collapsed onto his stomach, panting heavily.

"Return, Kas," said Thorn, sounding only mildly disappointed. He put the venusaur's pokéball back on his belt, before selecting another ball. It was hard to tell from across the arena, but he looked like he was smirking slightly. "You're pretty powerful, Matt, that's easy to see," he said, his good humor apparently returned. "But I'm afraid I'm going to have to negate your type advantage for now. Go, Perun!"

Moriko pulled out her pokédex. What emerged after the flash of blue light was a large, rangy pokémon that looked vaguely like a short camel with a long neck—a llama, or something. Perun had greenish-yellow fur that shifted more towards green and spikiness along his neck, and pale yellow protrusions that resembled long, dry grass along his spine and jutting out from his shoulder blades.

_Galvallama, the llama pokémon_, said the pokédex. _It evolves from alpavolt with a thunderstone or due to age. A grass- and electric-type, it, like its previous forms, is quite docile and is used as a pack animal in the mountainous areas where it resides. The hair of the basic form, wikuna, is incredibly soft but it grows coarser as it evolves. __Galvallama__ are prone to occasional fits of obstinacy but are otherwise quite agreeable._

Matt seemed to frown for a moment, but as usual he hadn't even touched his blue and bronze pokédex.

"Begin!" shouted the referee, judging that enough time had passed.

"Badbyax, just use the strongest attack you know."

"Perun, thunderbolt."

_That's interesting,_ thought Moriko. Matt had sent the ravener on a sort of kamikaze mission.

The two pokémon began glowing with energy; Perun with electricity and Badbyax with some sort of dark light. A dark sphere quickly grew at the ravener's beak level; it hummed and quivered for an instant before shooting off toward the galvallama. Perun was knocked backwards but the shadow ball did nothing to forestall his own attack, which he loosed a moment later.

Badbyax cawed harshly, equal parts pain and anger, as the electricity coursed through his body. Moriko could smell burnt feathers; there were plenty of them littering the field by this time.

"Badbyax, have you had enough?" said Matt, the bird's super ball at the ready.

The ravener's reply was completely clear, even to the spectators: "Fuck you!"

Matt grinned as Badbyax flew upwards, climbing high above his opponent before tucking in his wings and barreling downward in a dive bomb attack. Perun launched another electric-type attack just as the ravener struck him.

Matt recalled the unconscious form of Badbyax, minus a few feathers and with the addition of a few electrical burns. He seemed to think for a moment before tossing Björn's super ball out onto the field.

The wood-brown ursaring seemed to unfold as he stood on his hind legs, fully seven feet tall or so, and gave an enormous roar.

"Begin!"

"Thunder wave, Perun."

"Slash, Björn."

Matt's ursaring gave a barking growl and loped towards the galvallama, his huge paws held high and ready to batter the llama pokémon. Perun emitted a pulsing wave of energy as Björn drew near; with a roar, the ursaring swiped at the grass-type—

And halted suddenly, a few inches from contact. Björn twitched and shook, every muscle locked in a state of paralysis. Perun gave a goatlike laugh and headbutted the ursaring in the stomach.

Björn strugged to his feet again, massaging his stomach and trying to get his wind back; meanwhile, the galvallama was dancing just out of his reach, taunting, laughing and occasionally sending a thundershock or two his way. Enraged, he tried to lunge at the cheeky llama but found that all his limbs were stiff; while his gait was lumbering before, now it was a painful shuffle. He swiped jerkily as Perun seemed to come close but was far too slow to do a thing. He was getting angrier and angrier—

"Björn! Think about this for a second!"

Moriko noticed that the bear actually stopped, stopped in his tracks, as Matt said that. Then, bizarrely, he sat down in the middle of the arena and put his paws to his face, and if she could see and hear properly, had started _crying_. Yes! There were the salt tears, seeping out between his claws.

"The hell?" she breathed.

"I'm going to have to concur with that for now," muttered Russell.

Perun was equally mystified, or maybe just curious; he crept a little closer to Björn.

Thorn recognized that there was something out of place, as he said "Perun, don't—" just as the ursaring disappeared.

He reappeared a split-second later, right beside the galvallama, the faint attack manifesting itself as a backhanded swipe to the head. Perun was taken completely by surprise, and the powerful attack left the llama pokémon unconscious on the floor of the arena.

"Fake tears," said Thorn, after he'd recalled the fainted electric-type. He shook his head. "I should have known. In any case," he said, mood brightening, "congratulations! You may pick up your prizes from my secretary at the front when you leave. Next!"

Matthew returned Björn and leapt off the platform before it had fully descended, landing catlike on the concrete floor.

"Whew!" he said, running his fingers through sweat-dampened hair, "I was a little worried for a minute or two there."

"That was a dirty trick," said Russell, grinning. "I'll have to remember that one."

"So who's next?" asked Matt.

"I'll go, unless you want to, Mor," Russell said.

"'S all yours," she replied, lightly.

He nodded before loping easily over onto the platform; as it rose, he didn't sway or lose his balance.

"Russell Ignatius," he said, declaring his name.

Thorn nodded politely. "Same conditions as before?"

"Agreed," said the red-haired trainer.

"Select your pokémon!"

There was a short pause before the two young men threw a pokéball each, filling the arena with red light.

"Go, Keigan!"

"Go, Xylia!"

The gym leader's choice was a vaguely wolflike xyleon, the grass-type eevee evolution. The pokémon was a dark forest green with a neck ruff of a wide variety of shapes and colors of leaves. Her pelt was actual fur, quite unlike the mossy fuzz that Sylvia possessed. Her claws were a bright, gleaming yellow that contrasted with her liquid, solid-black eyes. She barked happily, apparently pleased to be on the battlefield, and wiggled her stump of a tail.

"The stantler's nervous," Matt commented, arms folded as he regarded the brief pre-battle posturing.

"How can you tell?" asked Moriko, feeling like she was indulging him, somehow.

"He's stamping a hoof and arching his neck quite a bit. Wants to appear tough, but he'd be calmer if he actually felt that confident."

"Oh really—" she said, just as the battle began.

"Xylia, razor leaf."

"Hypnosis, Keigan!"

The cervine pokémon's antlers were not especially grand, but they did display a pair of his species' distinctive, somewhat crystalline orbs. As he executed his attack, the air seemed to ripple around them, like it was being distorted by heat. Xylia watched her opponent for a second or two, blinking dazedly, before shaking her head decisively and launching a flurry of variously colored leaves.

Keigan broke off his own attack as he noticed the missiles flying towards him, but he was too slow to evade them; several slashed across his pelt, leaving thin red lines in their wake. He grunted in pain, but it seemed they merely stung.

"Use bite," said Thorn.

The xyleon had launched herself at Keigan before Russell could react; luckily, the stantler instinctively countered the grass-type's strike with a stomp attack. Xylia gave a small whimper as the deer-like pokémon's hooves came down hard on her, but she quickly leapt away as Keigan shifted his weight for another strike. The stantler paused for an instant, feeling like there was some sort of direction forthcoming; the xyleon used the instant to bite deep into her opponent's right foreleg.

"Use astonish!" Russell said, as his pokémon bellowed in pain.

Keigan bit one of Xylia's ears, desperately, startling her; she released him and he quickly scuttled backwards, favoring his injured leg.

"Hypnosis again!" Russell ordered quickly; the shock given by the weak astonish attack only lasted a moment or two.

Again the air wavered strangely. This time, the eevee evolution seemed to blink, confusedly, before slumping down to the grassy arena floor, asleep.

Keigan panted, almost desperately, as Xylia's sleeping form was converted to energy and sucked into her pokéball. After clipping the ball back onto his trainer's belt, Thorn paused for a moment before selecting another pokéball and tossing it into the arena.

"Seta, you're next."

The red light coalesced into a specimen of the vaguely lizardlike breloom. Her red eyes glinted mischievously under a broad-brimmed mushroom 'hat' as she bounced lightly on red-clawed feet.

Breloom were both grass and fighting types and along with their formidable physical strength, one attack would probably finish Keigan off.

Russell thought silently for a second or two before saying, "Keigan? Do you want to stop?"

Keigan seemed to sigh before saying, "I think I've got one more turn left."

Moriko felt, watching the pokémon, like he would like nothing better than to return to the dream-state of his pokéball, but something was compelling him to give this battle every ounce of his strength.

"Begin!" shouted the referee.

"Take down," said Russell.

"Seta, use sky uppercut."

Keigan seemed to take a deep breath before bellowing and charging his opponent; Seta grinned and took a fighter's stance. The stantler's attack connected, but the breloom performed some interesting gymnastics, rebounding to hit an astonished Keigan in the face with a powerful uppercut. Keigan was flipped onto his back from the force of it and stayed there, his chest rising and falling painfully until his body was converted to energy and drawn back into his pokéball.

Russell muttered something to the pokéball—making Moriko wonder if pokémon could actually hear it when their trainer did that, it was something to ask Matt or whoever—before selecting Sylvia's pokéball.

She must've decided to look as intimidating as she could upon her exit from the ball; the cayvine howled eerily and growled, slaver dripping from her jaws. The breloom's light-hearted expression faltered for an instant before returning.

"Mach punch," said Thorn, apparently deciding not to wait for the referee.

"Sylvia—"

Seta moved almost too quickly to see: one instant she was standing still, and in the next, she was delivering a flurry of swift, hard punches to Sylvia's shoulder and neck. The cayvine gave a little whine of shock, staggering to the side under the assault, before snarling angrily and sinking her teeth into one of the breloom's legs.

Seta shook her mushroom hat, dislodging a little cloud of spores as Sylvia bit again, this time with a little bit of greenish venom dripping out of her jaw.

The breloom leapt backwards as soon as Sylvia relaxed her hold; the two pokémon began to circle each other warily. Although Russell's pokémon had sustained the stronger attack, Seta was panting heavily, her eyes starting to look somewhat glassy, like she'd been poisoned.

Russell looked a little confused—a bite attack's extra power came from dark-type energy, which wouldn't have really affected the fighting-type breloom. Sylvia'd probably mastered a new technique, but it seemed that Russell couldn't remember what it could be, as he said "uh, whatever you did, Sylvia…do it again!"

"What attack _was_ that?" Moriko asked Matthew.

"Probably poison fang…and if the venom sacs in her jaw have matured, it means she's close to evolving," he said. Moriko didn't bother asking how he knew that.

"Sky uppercut, Seta," Thorn was saying.

Sylvia leapt at her opponent, landing on her hard as she was winding up for the powerful punching attack. Pinned against the ground, Seta could only score a few glancing blows against Sylvia's face before she savagely bit into the space between the breloom's neck and shoulder.

"Careful!" Russell said abruptly, as the fighting-type gave a ghastly screech.

The cayvine relaxed her hold obediently, only to receive a low kick attack to the stomach. She yelped, leaping backwards at the shock, but quickly shifted to a growl as Seta rose, streaked with red-brown ichor and the grass-type wolf's venom. She wheezed painfully before giving an enraged shriek and treating Sylvia to another barrage of quick punches.

Russell opened and closed his mouth as he seemed to wrack his brain, trying to think of anything Sylvia could do to counter the attack; meanwhile both pokémon were growing weaker and weaker as the poison coursed through Seta's body and as she pummeled the cayvine.

Then, suddenly, inspiration found a footing: "Sylvia, drop to the ground!"

The wolf dropped to her belly as if all her legs had given out at once, and in the instant where Seta realized she was hitting nothing but air, Sylvia bit her viciously in the stomach. The breloom screeched again, scrabbling at Sylvia's face and muzzle before the cayvine rose to her feet and gave an almost contemptuous flick of her head. Seta was tossed across the arena, rolling and coming to a stop on the grassy turf, and did not rise.

"Return," said Thorn, almost sadly. He clipped the ball back onto his belt, saying, "that's enough."

"But—"

"Xylia can technically still fight? I know. But I think you deserve the badge. It and your other prizes will be waiting for you on your way out," said Thorn. "Good day to you."

Russell smiled. "Thank you. And great battle by the way! Return," he said, drawing Sylvia back into her pokéball.

The platform sunk to the ground and he dismounted from it, calling, "your turn, Mor!"

Moriko exhaled strongly, a bit nervous—she had a type advantage on two counts, so her battle wouldn't…_shouldn't_ be too hard, but…imagine she lost? What shame!

_No_, she told herself, _it'll be fine_.

"What?" she said, realizing Matt was talking to her.

"I said, 'good luck'," said Matthew, looking like he was about to laugh.

"Oh…thanks."

She nodded, a bit weakly, at Russell as she passed him, and jumped slightly to ascend onto the trainer's platform. Her heavy boots hit the hollow metal structure as she moved to the side facing the arena and grasped the railing, taking care to keep her balance as the platform rose.

"So, miss…I believe you already know me," said Thorn, tucking a strand of hair behind one of his ears, apparently unaware of how feminine the motion was, or maybe just not caring. "What is _your_ name?"

"Moriko Rotewald. Speaking of names, there's something I wanted to ask you…you wouldn't happen to be related to a Professor Hawthorn in Port Littoral, would you?"

Thorn grinned, abruptly. "I would, actually—the old goat is my father. My full name is Alexander Hawthorn. How is he?"

"Well…he was really strict when he used to teach us Pokémon Theory," she replied, trying to be objective. "But I don't know what he was like outside of school."

"As I'd expect. All right…shall we begin?"

"Let's."

"Select your pokémon!" said the referee.

"Jurojin!"

"Go, Tarahn!"

Thorn's selection appeared from the greenish-blue light of a net ball: it was a mooskeg buck, probably locally caught, judging by its similarity to the one she'd seen a few days earlier. This one lacked the hunted look of that other one, and was probably older: his antlers had come in, and he was taller at the shoulder. Tarahn paced, facing his opponent; but she wondered if he had his teeth bared and his purple eyes glinting predatorily, his easygoing nature shed due to the seriousness of the battle?

"Begin!"

"Use take down," said Thorn.

"Poison claw!" said Moriko quickly.

Jurojin snorted and charged Tarahn, his head lowered so the impact would be supplemented by his antlers. The raigar snarled at the oncoming grass-type, standing his ground for a second or two before seeming to leap straight up in the air. He landed lightly on the mooskeg's back as he skidded to a halt; Jurojin immediately gave a bellow of rage, which grew in pitch and intensity as Tarahn raked his back and flanks with his claws. The moose pokémon began to run in a maddened circle, bucking in an attempt to dislodge the electric-type on his back. Tarahn hung on for a second or two, just to prove that he could, before leaping gracefully off.

"Try a spark attack," said Moriko. Tarahn's poison-type attacks would probably do more damage, but they required him to make physical contact with the target, and that could be dangerous given the characteristically low defensive abilities of the raigar species.

"Water pulse, Juro."

Sparks of electricity danced along Tarahn's body as his fur stood on end; with a miniature thunderclap, a bolt of electricity shot at the mooskeg. At the same time, Jurojin spat a ball of water at the cougar pokémon. Tarahn saw the water coming, too slow to react to it and was knocked back across the arena; the mooskeg bellowed in pain as the electric energy coursed through his body.

"Take down," said Thorn, again.

"Use—hell's bells, Tarahn!"

The raigar had turned his back on the moosekeg and proceeded to shake himself vigorously, sending a spray of water in all directions as the grass-type charged him. He looked up in time to desperately throw himself out of the take down attack's path, but not quickly enough to avoid being raked by Jurojin's antlers as he galloped past. Tarahn yowled, his left hind leg capable of only a limp as he tried to right himself and face his opponent.

"Finish him with stomp," said Thorn. Tarahn wasn't _that_ badly hurt, but an attack like stomp would probably render him unable to battle if he couldn't dodge it.

"Spark again," said Moriko, as Jurojin's path curved back around towards the raigar and accelerated.

Tarahn growled as electricity was being drawn from all over his body and focused into one shot—but he was too slow, the mooskeg would hit him before then—he was surrounded by an electric aura now—Jurojin was on his hind legs, about to bring down all his weight—

There should have been a terrific flash of light. Instead, there was only a snarl, followed by a cervine scream, as Tarahn leapt and sunk his teeth and claws into the mooskeg's belly. For an instant, it looked like the two pokémon were in some sort of bizarre embrace, and then Jurojin overbalanced and fell to the arena floor with a thud and the clatter of antlers. He kept screaming as the raigar tore into his vulnerable underside.

"Tarahn! Cut it out!" There wasn't much that pokécenter healers couldn't fix, spinal injuries included, but if too much damage was done before they got there—

Tarahn obeyed, limping away, his paws and muzzle dark red with the mooskeg's blood. Jurojin panted and groaned with pain, his belly covered with deep slashes in addition to the others he'd sustained.

"Return," said Thorn quickly. An aide came rushing up to the trainer platform and Thorn handed her Jurojin's net ball, then removed an ultra ball from his trainer belt. He took the belt with its other four balls, the pokémon that Russell and Matt had faced, and passed that down to the aide as well, who sped off towards the back; presumably they had their own pokécenter facilities somewhere in the gym.

"I think you'd better stop too, Tarahn," Moriko said.

"If you insist," he said lightly, but she could tell he was relieved.

Moriko clipped the raigar's rather scuffed pokéball to her belt and selected Rufus's ball, flicking it out into the arena. With a burst of red light, the fire-type bull materialized, his mane and tail burning bluish in places. He gave a deep bass _moo_ and pawed the turf of the arena restlessly.

Thorn was just watching, holding the one capture ball he had left as if it was something precious he was loath to part with.

"I forgot that I'd left this pokémon on my belt," he said eventually. "She is almost too strong for me to use legally. Your having a fire type makes me feel slightly better for my…oversight. You might actually have a chance."

Moriko felt a chill, not at what he said but how he said it; she was used to this kind of pre-battle boasting, but not to how expressionless his voice had become. "Why can't you get an aide or someone to bring you a different pokémon?" she asked, although she already had an idea of what the answer was.

"Can't. Illegal. The match would be invalid, no matter who won," said Alexander Hawthorn. He sighed, his wrist curling to hold the ball closer to him, as if what was inside had a thirst to escape and needed to be restrained. "Are you ready?"

"Whenever you are." Her eyes flicked down towards Rufus, he had his head turned towards her, his expression questioning insofar as she could determine. She tried not to show her feeling of apprehension.

Thorn nodded, looking utterly tired. "Go, Arantxa…"

Moriko watched the ultra ball curve upward, decelerating until for a split-second, it was motionless in the air; then it fell, accelerating towards the ground, bursting open shortly before impact to reveal, in a flash of bright yellow light—

It was like nothing she'd ever seen.

x.x.x.x.x

HOLY CRAP. :dies: Six thousand words, and I didn't even finish the battle. I've been writing this chapter over, like, the past month or so…so tell me if it stops making sense or anything, because my brain is a puddle of runny stuff. I'm going to have to go back and change professor Thorn's name to Hawthorn, that's what I intended it to be but I'm not sure why I didn't put that. Blah. I'm also thinking about going back and redoing chapter three or four sometime in the future, because the one I'm thinking of sucks.

And yeah. LOOKIT ALL THAT ACTION! Yessss.

Anyway, LOOK! Mirronos! It's Empiric's submitted pokémon! Or the second-stage form at least. I'm sorry if I totally butchered it, but as soon as I noticed that it was a mirror it was too good to waste. Nyee. n.n;; 

And a big thanks to all my reviewers; you guys make me feel real special. Chapter twelve coming soon, hopefully:D


	13. Chapter 12: Arantxa

Chapter 12: Arantxa

Moriko stared.

She had been half-expecting a psychotic borfang, actually. Of course, they were grass- and dragon-types, so Rufus's being there wouldn't have mattered, and Thorn had implied that having a fire type was her only chance…

Arantxa was immense. The creature was probably eight or nine feet tall, with a short torso and spiderlike limbs. Its—because the idea of this monster having a gender was utterly rejected by Moriko's mind—entire body was thorns. If there was some sort of underlying skin, muscle, bone structure—every inch of it was covered in long, bristling, needlelike thorns. The creature seemed to have no head, just a pair of eyes glowing like hot coals in the middle of its chest. Its legs terminated in six enormous thorns, hooked like claws but each placed in a hexagonal pattern. Its arms had six digits also, five fingers and one thumb. It didn't have much in the way of discernible color, seemed to consist of blackness that went spiky at the edges.

"_Thornlem, the golem pokémon_," read the pokédex. "_When this pokémon dies, it collapses into a pile of thorns and steel needles, leading researchers to believe that it may be artificial. This grass- and steel-type will fight and often kill anything it comes across. Notoriously difficult to subdue and extremely belligerent, only fire-types can deal with it effectively._"

She swallowed nervously, putting her pokédex back into her pocket. What to do? She could forfeit, get Tarahn healed and come back later, and not have to face _that_… ah, but that would be the _smart_ thing to do, said a sarcastic thought. That would be… giving up, skimping out. No. Better to try, and if it got too serious, then forfeit.

It couldn't hurt to _try_…

"Ru—" She stopped, feeling the tremor in her voice. Took a deep breath. "Rufus? What do you think?"

Rufus blinked his heavy, liquid cow's eyes. "Mmm…what types is it?"

"Grass and steel."

The volbine snorted a mushroom of flame. "Well what're we waiting for? This's gonna be easy!"

Moriko smiled, heartened a bit by Rufus's confidence—_which was entirely the wrong way around_, said a voice in her head—and nodded.

"Okay. Let's go."

Thorn gave a wan smile as the referee bellowed, "Begin!"

"Flame wheel!" she said immediately. The attack took a second or two to charge, and she didn't know how fast the golem-thing was.

"Crush claw," said Thorn.

Flames surrounded Rufus's body, merging suddenly into a sphere which the bull pokémon launched, trailing fire as it shot at Arantxa. The grass-type just watched the ball of flame shooting at it, before dropping to one knee with a creaking noise like an enormous wicker basket. It moved faster than something that large should have been allowed, leaving the fire attack to hit Thorn's trainer platform; the fireball quickly dissipated, a section of the metal glowing with heat as testimony to its existence.

Arantxa leapt, not making any noise except the creaking of its body, bounding over to its opponent to swipe powerfully with a hand full of needles. Rufus grunted and tried to sidestep the blow, but was caught on the shoulder. He bellowed in pain, galloping away from the monster, orange-red blood leaking from the gouges in his side. He spat a burst of embers, which hit the thornlem—the affected areas of its body simply fell, smoking, to the arena floor.

"Now you see the downside," called Thorn. "As she is damaged, bits fall off. But she can regenerate them, so you're going to have to do a little more damage at a time than that. Just so you know, when she loses seventy percent of her mass, that counts as a fainting. If we kept going after that, she would die."

Something in her mind suggested that it would not terribly mind if that occurred, but she dismissed it.

"Try flame wheel again, Rufus!"

"Poison sting."

Arantxa extended a hand, a section of thorns glowing lavender before shooting at the fire-type. Many lodged in Rufus's front, eliciting a short groan from him before they were burnt away by the swirling flames of his own attack. The second sphere of flame he launched managed to singe the golem's side, the burnt needles dropping off and landing on the turf of the arena, but Arantxa wasn't anywhere near to fainting or what would be considered so. Meanwhile, Rufus was bleeding freely, panting his fatigue and even had a little poison in his system.

Thorn looked genuinely contrite, as far as she could tell. "I'm sorry, Moriko, I really am…but your volbine, I'm afraid, is much too slow. Don't worry, you can come back for another, fairer try when your pokémon are healed… you've put up a remarkable fight, you know, nothing to be ashamed of at all. But…"

He seemed to take a deep breath, trying to make himself relax as Moriko felt her hands clench involuntarily.

"It's time to end this. Arantxa?"

And in the way the golem moved, after that, it became apparent that the blows it had given were mere horseplay. During the previous minutes of the battle, the monster—and Thorn—had merely been toying with them, trying to see if they were strong enough to actually pose a threat.

Arantxa moved like a snake, reaching out and delivering a backhanded swipe—not unlike the one Björn had used to faint Thorn's gallami, she noticed—to Rufus before he could react or probably even think. A few hundred pounds of fire-type bull was knocked flying across the arena, landing with a thud. Rufus bawled as he landed on his injured side—well, the one that'd been slashed first. His new wounds were even worse.

With a phenomenal display of tenacity, Rufus rose to his hooves again. His sides were streaked with blood, the skin hanging off in strips, one eye swollen shut. A trickle of blood dripped out of his mouth as he panted, every breath labored and painful.

It is commonly stated of certain fire-type pokémon that, if their flames go out, they will die. This is only partially true. If an open-flame pokémon such as ponyta is found with no flame burning on its body at all, it is invariably deceased. If its flames are burning brightly, it has a great deal of energy; if they are burning incredibly low, the pokémon is probably close to death. The misconception lies in the belief that the fire-type's flames can be 'put out' like a wood fire. Plunging a charmeleon's tail into a bucket of water will not kill it, but if it falls into a lake or river, it is very easy for it to perish by drowning or hypothermia.

Rufus's flames, previously a roaring strip of orange-yellow highlighted with blue, had been reduced to a flickering trail of red-orange not half the height of the previous.

Moriko could barely think for the anger and the shame. It wasn't _fair_! She'd come this far, Tarahn had done a great job, only to be defeated because of the gym leader's mistake. It was wrong, it was unjust, it was—

"Moriko!"

Matt's voice broke her out of her reverie. She looked up to see Arantxa going for another blow.

She whipped out Rufus's pokéball. "Stop it! Ret—"

The arena erupted in light.

The thornlem stopped, halted in mid-swing. Moriko shielded her eyes, trying to see what was happening. What was going on? Rufus was—he couldn't be—

The light slowly faded, revealing an enormous figure: not as tall as the thorn golem, but easily much heavier. Red-orange hide interspersed with lighter orange blotches covered a body that looked like the amalgam of an ox and a human: a bull's head with bone-colored horns, set on wide shoulders and a body-builder's chest, muscular arms with three-fingered hands. The legs were bent like a satyr's, ending in huge dark hooves. Muscles shifted under his hide as he examined his new body, the flames on his arms, shoulders, back and the tip of his tail burning strongly with the energy from his evolution.

Rufus shifted his attention to Arantxa. The monster had its back to Moriko, but even if she could see its face it seemed to be incapable of any expression. It moved backwards very slightly when Rufus looked at it.

A second later, he exhaled a stream of fire hot enough to melt rock.

Arantxa—engulfed in flame, burning needles falling around it like rain—lunged at Rufus, scratching and clawing for all it was worth. Most unnerving was its silence—indeed, it hadn't made a sound the entire battle, apart from the creaking of its limbs—despite the fact that it was on fire. Moriko wondered if the thornlem could even _feel_ pain.

Rufus grabbed one of the flailing limbs, his new fangs bared, heedless of the needles which must have been stabbing into his hand, and punched the golem right in the eyes. It flew through the air, still burning, and landed with the same sound a wicker bookcase would after falling out of a seventh-story window onto concrete.

And was converted back to yellow energy as Thorn silently recalled it.

Moriko blinked, like she'd come out of a dream, and found that she'd taken out her pokédex without thinking.

"_Oxhaust_," it read, "_the minotaur pokémon. Evolves from volbine at level thirty-six. A fire- and fighting-type. The form is not often reached in the wild, as it is so different from its previous ones. Wild oxhaust usually lead solitary lives, as they are carnivorous, belligerent and very hot-tempered, but trained ones are often quite loyal and friendly towards their trainers. They have been known to start forest fires unintentionally_."

Oxhaust…

Rufus was looking extremely tired in the aftermath of his evolution—he'd gotten a temporary boost of energy and endorphins along with the increase in strength, but now the former two were dissipating rather quickly. Moriko belatedly noticed that although his body had changed shape, he was still wounded in approximately the same places.

"Return, Rufus," she said. He turned towards her and looked quite relieved as he was drawn back into his pokéball. "Bloody awesome job," she muttered, feeling silly but not caring. She found she was trying not to grin insanely.

"You definitely had luck on your side for that one," she realized Thorn was saying. She looked up, but his expression was not unkindly. "But then again, you had the bad luck of having to deal with _my_ cock-up. So…"

"I guess that breaks about even on the karma scale," Matt quipped from the back.

Thorn grinned. "You're a talented young woman, Moriko. I'm sure you'll have a lot less trouble at the next gym… as long as you keep training, of course. Your prizes will be at the front like the others'. I wish you a safe journey to Porphyry City. And good luck."

She nodded. "Thank you." She paused, before adding, "am I allowed to ask where you caught that… thing? So I can avoid it if possible."

Alexander Hawthorn shook his head, still smiling a bit. "No. That's the point."

x.x.x.x.x

"Hey Mor," said Russell, as they retraced their steps through the greenhouse maze, "Rufus evolved! Aren't you excited?"

"Well, yeah…I mean, I didn't know oxhaust were that _awesome_, but…" she trailed off.

"But what?"

"You feel bad because he evolved because of pain, don't you?" said Matthew quietly.

"Y…es. You're right," said Moriko. "I just…it shouldn't happen like that. Like…well, with Tarahn, I just woke up one day and he was a raigar. I didn't want Rufus to…be forced to grow up."

"I know how you feel," said Matt.

She was surprised. She'd expected some overbearing response like 'well that's just the way it is' or 'well you're going to have to get used to it'.

"Björn and Maia both evolved fairly naturally—after they'd won a battle, nothing unusual. But unless you stop battling, there's always the chance that you'll be facing some opponent, an opponent you just can't seem to beat without something extra. And that need will trigger the evolution." Matt paused a moment before continuing. "I wouldn't feel bad until I found out how Rufus felt about it, if I were you," he said gently.

When they reached the front desk again, there were three green felt bags waiting for them while the secretary typed testily, trying extremely hard to indicate that the three trainers were not worth any flicker of attention. They took a bag each and decided to examine their prizes while walking back to the 'center: Moriko was starting to feel a severe anxiety for Rufus's health and was having trouble not breaking into a run.

It was only after she presented her two pokéballs to the attendant at the pokémon center that she examined her earnings. The monetary prize for a gym battle was most often equivalent to one hundred times the level of the highest-leveled pokémon the gym leader used against you. For that reason, Moriko received a few hundred yen more than her cohorts; about four thousand for her and around thirty-six hundred for the others. They also received a technical machine number nineteen and forest badge each.

The forest badge was a simplistic tree that looked vaguely like green candyfloss on a thick brown base slightly less wide than the rest of it. It was filled out with a polygonal indigo background and would have been, in its entirety, rather dull if not for the odd swirls on the tree, done in a pretty metallic gold color and very precise. Since getting away from the plains, the novelty of the hat her grandmother had sent her had worn off, and was sitting somewhere in her bag. It would still do for keeping her badges somewhere, although she felt a little paranoid about not having them directly on her person at all times.

Tarahn was healed and ready to go after a few minutes, but Rufus, the attendant informed her, was going to take a little longer; she said this looking at Moriko disapprovingly over her glasses, as if the green-haired trainer was personally responsible for inflicting Rufus's many lacerations.

Well, in a way, she was…

Matt and Russell went off to investigate the library, leaving her to sit anxiously in the pokécenter lounge, Tarahn dozing and full of meat on her lap, with nothing to do but flip through the various entries in her pokédex.

After close to an hour, the intercom finally buzzed and requested her presence at the treatment desk. Her mind still writhed with all the scenarios her imagination could produce: he would be a little longer, they needed to do surgery, there was a problem with the healing machine…

"Miss Rotewald?"

"Yes, that's me," she said impatiently, slapping down her trainer's license.

The attendant glanced at the card serenely before handing her a scuffed pokéball with a worn fire decal above the nub on the front.

"Do try to be more careful—"

"Yes, thank you," Moriko said loudly, trotting off outside with Tarahn in tow.

The raigar snickered. "Annoyed much?" he inquired as they passed through the automatic doors to the outside.

"Just a little, how could you tell?" she said, sarcastic, but she was feeling better to be out of the 'center. They walked out onto the lawns around the building; there were a couple other trainers dozing under a tree, but no one else.

"Let's see how Rufus is doing, shall we?"

"Oh, what the hell?" said Tarahn as the light coalesced to reveal the oxhaust. "You evolved?"

"Wow, really?" said Rufus, looking at his hands in mock wonder.

Tarahn barked a short laugh. "Oh shut up, I was surprised. And no one told me," he added, pointedly.

"Sorry hon, I was busy worrying," said Moriko, rolling her eyes. She flopped down on the grass, Tarahn taking his customary position: lying on his side with his head in her lap, his legs limp and randomly placed. Rufus sat as well, his quarter-ton of muscle and bone making the ground shake. His new body was not completely analogous to a human one, so he ended up sprawled on his back—he'd have to work out how to arrange his satyr-style legs later.

"So… how do you feel?" she asked the fire-type gently.

Rufus's shoulders, chest and hands were covered in scabbed-over scratches, but they were healing and the flames on his body were burning at what seemed the right intensity. It was always a little amazing that he could be in direct contact with grass or cloth without it combusting, but he'd learned to control the flames on his body long before he knew how to channel the inferno inside.

His eyes—which had changed from brown to blood red when he evolved—moved from staring up and the cloudy sky to meet her own. "I'm a little sore, I guess, but other than that I'm fine. Why?" He grinned abruptly, lips pulling back to reveal the huge, pointed canines of a predator. "Oh come on, you weren't _really_ worried, were you?"

Moriko tried not to smile ruefully. "Maybe a bit." She remembered the bloodied, beaten volbine standing his ground against the horror that was Arantxa and felt like crying.

"What's the matter?" he said, his bass voice rumbling even as he spoke quietly.

"I just feel like… I forced you into evolving. We should've stopped, and… and then you wouldn't've been… you wouldn't've had to…"

"Moriko…" Rufus sat up, extended one of his huge hands. She placed one of her own on it; she felt like a child, was a child, although she'd lived about four times longer than the oxhaust… he'd become an adult, and left her behind.

"It was my choice, Moriko. I said I wanted to keep fighting, and… okay, I admit that was a bit dumb. I won't lie… those scratches really bloody stung. But I evolved and won. I really wasn't expecting it, I mean, I kind of felt like it was coming, but… look. Don't beat yourself up. You're a great trainer. The best. It wasn't your fault, and I'm okay with it."

"And don't worry so much. We're here to protect you, not the other way around. At least… not anymore," said Tarahn. He sat back on his haunches and looked around, to make sure no one was looking, before rubbing his cheek against hers.

She drew a long, shuddering breath as she tried not to smile. "Thanks," she said, surreptitiously dabbing at her eyes.

"Now move over," said Tarahn brightly, "I want to sit on the bull's shoulders."

Rufus moved into a crouch and the raigar clambered up onto his impressively wide shoulders, trying extremely hard not to extend his claws. He flopped down, paws hanging loosely as if he was just a skin and not the entire animal, and gave a little purr of contentment that always put Moriko in mind of one of those old internal combustion engines.

"You have _no_ idea how nice this is," he said, purple eyes closed as the oxhaust's flames continued to wash over him without burning, as if physics had decided to take a holiday. "It's like, I don't know, maybe a warm bath without the wetness… not that I've ever had a bath, of course, but I'm hoping the comparison is about right…"

"You're _soft_," said Rufus. "I had no idea."

Moriko had to fight not to laugh at the two and how content they were together. Warrior-bonds between men indeed!

Tarahn looked up, abruptly. "Hey, it's Angela," he said. "Why don't we flaunt the final form state of a certain member of our group?"

Angela was in fact striding confidently towards them, flanked by—yes, it was—a tibyss.

"Moriko! There you are. I thought I saw you earlier but you disappeared. How _are_ you?" she said brightly, walking up.

Moriko stood and so did Rufus, albeit a little more carefully, so as not to dislodge his passenger.

Angela was dressed in a light green tank top and denim capris, her hair clean and styled, a purse at her shoulder and pink flip-flops on her feet. In short, indistinguishable from one of the tourist-type crowd: her digital storage device allowed her the luxury of non-traveling clothes, various hair care products and the like.

"I'm just great," Moriko replied lightly. "I just won at the gym, and Rufus evolved, if you haven't noticed."

"Oh really? You must be _very_ happy. Rio evolved, oh, about a week or so ago. So did Mackenzie's volbine, although she's about as feminine as _your_ oxhaust, now." Angela gave a delicate titter.

"Yes, I understand oxhaust show very little dimorphism," said Moriko. "So what have you been up to?"

"Oh, just a bit of training before I go to challenge the gym leader. Is he very difficult?"

_Eyes, glowing like coals out of a body of needles_—"No, not terribly."

"That's good. Have you caught any other pokémon yet?"

"No, not yet. I haven't really seen any that piqued my interest enough to want to catch." _Except for the murkrow, any of the leifer herds, that mooskeg… all of which eluded you in one way or another…_

"Oh, that's too bad. I caught a clawbit first, they have the pickup ability you know, she finds me good items sometimes, a duspine, and David bought me an eevee from a breeder in town! They're not too expensive, you might want to get one too if you can afford it," Angela said genially.

Moriko, who didn't care for eevee or its many evolutions, something Angela knew, said, "Oh really? I might look into that."

"Well, nice talking to you, but I'd better get going. See you later!"

Moriko nodded and waited for Angela and her pokémon to disappear into the pokémon center.

She took a deep breath.

"I. Hate. Her. So. _Much._"

Rufus patted her on the shoulder gently, almost knocking her down.

"That Rio!" said Tarahn, nursing his own enmity. "What a pompous son of a—"

The hatred between him and Angela's starter had existed almost since they had first met. Tarahn had been bigger than Rio, and possessed a type advantage for a long time, but now the water-type was rather larger than he.

"Yeah, they're both kind of annoying," said Rufus diplomatically.

She sighed. "Come on, Rufus, you must be hungry." She glanced at his huge frame and wondered if the pokémon center policy to give free food to pokémon still applied.

"I'm starving, actually."

"We'd better go feed you, then…"

x.x.x.x.x

Moriko watched as Rufus chewed through tray after tray of raw meat, still wearing a dozing Tarahn on his shoulders. The cafeteria staff had been surprisingly enthusiastic, i.e. merely indifferent instead of wildly opposed. She surmised that it was because Verdure was, of course, a tourist town, and they probably had trainers coming in with large pokémon wanting large meals quite frequently. She wondered, not for the first time, how he was going to hunt if he'd had no practice.

There was a man approaching their table, she noticed.

He was quite tall and very muscled, wearing a tank top and comfortable-looking pants; brown hair and goatee, nothing terribly unusual. He was flanked by a bipedal, vaguely reptilian pokémon that she didn't realize was a hitmonchan until he came close enough, because he was missing his species' distinctive boxing gloves and fighting tunic ensemble.

"Hello. Is that your oxhaust?"

"I do legally own him, yes. Why?"

"I'm a patron of the various fighting-type tournaments, but I'm on a training vacation here in Verdure. I was wondering if you'd care to have a match between my hitmonchan, here, and your oxhaust." His eyes were as yellow as a hawk's, she noticed.

"I'd love to, normally, but he's still recovering from his last gym battle." _Claws and thorns, every inch a harming surface_—"It was… difficult."

"Oh! I see the scabs, now," he said, glancing over at Rufus. "His… ah, friend there looks like he's covering most of them. Well, sorry to have bothered you—"

"Don't worry about it."

"All right. Here," he said, going through his pockets, "I'm guessing Porphyry is your next stop, so if you feel like a battle then, stop into The Pit." He handed her a slightly dog-eared business card. "I might have gotten back by then, or if not, there're plenty of folks who'd love to fight a fine specimen of an oxhaust like your own."

"Thanks," she said, "I might give it a look."

He nodded and walked off, the hitmonchan silently following.

In truth, she was a little leery of the trainer's suggestion: combined with all she'd heard about Porphyry City and fighting-type enthusiasts, she had the feeling it was some sort of illegal battle arena, a den of gambling, drink and other vices. But the trainer she'd met didn't seem so bad…

"Moriko? Hey! How's Rufus?"

She looked up to see Russell with Matt following close behind, their hands completely free of books or other literature.

"He's fine. Find anything?"

"Precisely dick," said Matt, shaking his head.

"Not that the selection was very good," said Russell. "I guess there's not that much interest."

"Considering what this town is… Oh well, maybe they'll have it in Porphyry," she suggested.

"Maybe… Hey, speaking of Porphyry, we don't have anything else we need to do here, do we?" said Matt.

"I don't think so… apart from restocking our supplies, of course," said Russell.

"I'm all for leaving, if that's what you're getting at," said Moriko, yawning a bit. "Are you almost done, Rufus?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, I think I'll be fine once I've finished this plate."

"How many plates have you had, out of curiosity?" asked Matt.

"This is my eighth, I think," said Rufus cheerfully.

"Oh, good."

"The pokédex says they usually have three large meals for every four-day period, but how do they learn to hunt?" asked Moriko.

"It's probably like learning a new technique… when he's ready, he'll 'remember' it, almost," said Matt.

There was a slight clatter as Rufus stood up off the bench that had sagged underneath his weight and put the plate neatly on the stack beside him.

"Ready to go?" she asked him.

"Whenever you are."

"All right, return, both of you," said Moriko, pulling out the two pokéballs. They were converted into bright red energy and disappeared.

"So… how many days to Porphyry, Matt?" Russell asked as they walked out of the cafeteria and towards the stairs.

"Well, you know how accurate I am now," he said jokingly, "but it apparently should be another ten days."

"Oh, great…"

x.x.x.x.x

Piercing yellow eyes glared through the dimness.

The forest was still, breezes passing through the uppermost levels of the trees only. A squarrel chittered angrily somewhere, was silent.

The silence was disturbed the sound of boots crunching through leaf litter, the creaking of a heavy backpack and some snatches of music being hummed.

The sun was nearly set; all Michelle O'Rourke wanted to do was go a little further until she found a likely place to set up camp.

She'd been walking all day through the forest, on her way to Porphyry City. The very thought would send a shiver down her spine; yes, the city could be a bit dangerous, so she'd heard a thousand times, but it would be _exciting_. And excitement was something her mining-based hometown of Quarric Village was in short supply of.

She was profoundly tired, she realized; she'd been a trainer for a few weeks and she still wasn't completely used to the lifestyle of walking, walking, walking.

Just a little bit further, of course.

She thought she heard the flutter of wings for a moment, but she didn't do more than glance around her; she already had a flying-type anyway.

Predator's eyes watched the trainer move through the forest, utterly unfazed by the low light, unblinking, as patient as the angel of death.

x.x.x.x.x

Hey, it's only been four days since my last chapter. Amazing, isn't it? Having time to write is NICE. Yay for holidays… although I should really be getting my extended essay done… NERK. Anyway, for anyone who doesn't review and thus I can't pester them via e-mail… the first scene in the last chapter was edited because it confused so many people. My bad.

So yes… only four reviews for the last chapter, but then again the interval between it and this one was pretty small. So make sure to review this one or I'll be sad. :(


	14. Chapter 13: Memento Mori

Chapter 13: _Memento Mori_

"_Where there is much light, the shadow is deep._" - Goethe

"Come _on_, Rufus! The water's nice! Oh, really… Maia, spray him, won't you?"

Maia had laughed and shot a delicate spray of water at the fire-type. It was much too weak to be considered any sort of attack, but he still flinched when it struck him.

"_No_, thank you, Tarahn. I'm just fine out here," he'd replied, retreating further away from the lake. The water probably _was_ nice… for someone with a rather lower body temperature than his. Rufus shook his huge head, flopping down on the sand and going back to trying to melt it into interesting shapes. The water had been icy cold on his hands, but his mouth was pretty insensitive in terms of temperature, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to drink it.

"Well, whatever. His loss," said Tarahn, indifferent. Maia was a lot more fun to play with, as long as he kept his electricity as suppressed as possible.

"Let's go bother those anatarn again," she suggested.

"Right-oh."

The trouble with the three trainers' march to the southwest was that the closer they got to the Lacuna Sea, the more lakes and watermeadows there seemed to be. And although the mountains were considerably less rugged, the fastest routes to take were across the various bodies of water.

Moriko wondered, however, between all the bickering and scouting and studying of their GPS modules (which indicated where lakes and things were located, just not how deep or leech-infested they were), whether just going around was actually faster.

_Oh well. It's a beautiful day,_ she thought, drying in the sun after going for a swim with the pokémon. Her hair was going to smell like ducks for the next couple of days, but whatever. A distant quacking indicated that Maia and Tarahn were terrorizing the anatarn flock again. The thought crossed her mind that she should probably catch one of the duck-like pokémon; they were water-types, so that would help cover the weakness to ground-type attacks that Tarahn and Rufus shared, besides giving her the option of a third fighter… However, she wasn't terribly interested in the anatarn or their evolved form, and like most trainers, wasn't interested in training a pokémon she didn't like: she found birds to be rather dull, with the exception of birds of prey.

Russell was somewhere to her right, leaned up against Keigan and with his dirfox, Conall, on his lap, all dozing under a widely spread weeping willow. He'd remembered to call Professor Willow about the weird fox pokémon right before they left; luckily, it turned out he was just rather shell-shocked after his capture. He'd been calmed down and had warmed up considerably to his new trainer in the four days they'd been walking. The celestiule egg seemed to be close to hatching as well; Russell would have a fourth pokémon soon, and then he'd be ahead of both her and Matt. Not bad for someone who'd been on the badge quest for a little over three weeks and had only had his starter to begin with.

And speaking of that… she really bloody needed to get some more pokémon!

Annoyed with this train of thought, she tried her best to fall asleep but was interrupted by Matt's voice.

"Time to go!" he called, trotting over. He'd been talking to an older man, a retired trainer who'd settled here and built a cabin a bit higher up the mountain. He'd let them stay the night in his basement; she'd thought he was being pretty trusting of a few trainers he'd known for a few hours, but the assortment of high-level pokémon lounging around his cabin indicated that he had little to fear.

"Moriko, Russ, wake up! We're getting a ride across the lake!" he said before moving closer to the water to get Maia and Tarahn's attention.

The two catlike pokémon bounded out of the water; Tarahn stopped and shook himself vigorously, sending sheets of water in all directions. Maia didn't need to as her incredibly short, velvety fur shed water very quickly.

Their pokémon finally recalled and their belongings accounted for, the three trainers walked down the beach to where the dock was located.

The old trainer was standing up in his boat, attending to something or other. It was a small craft, could probably seat six people without pushing the safety guidelines. It was probably one of the older gasoline-powered models, optimized to have as low emissions as possible. He hadn't told them his name, but they hadn't given theirs, so that was fine. He seemed to be a taciturn man, probably felt too old to worry about pleasantries.

The dock's timbers creaked and groaned expressively underneath their booted feet as they walked along it; about ten feet out into the lake, a female brantmere swam by, followed by a line of fluffy anatarn chicks. The goose-like pokémon was distinguishable from a normal goose by its teal plumage, highlighted with red on her face and breast, and the long leaves set into its wings. The chicks were still in their downy, highly photogenic stage of infancy, but they would be greenish-blue with yellow highlights when their feathers came in.

"Ready to go?" the old trainer asked gruffly. "Two in the stern, one in the bow."

Moriko blinked; she could never remember which end of the boat was which, but the front end had a vaporeon in it, so she surmised that was the bow. Matt and Russell had sat down at the back already; she felt the slight sting of being 'left out', as it were, but didn't really mind. She stepped carefully, a little leery of the boat shifting under her weight, and sat, setting her backpack down at her feet.

The vaporeon was vaguely canine in appearance, but his blue hide bore scars from innumerable battles. The series of spines joined by semitransparent tissue that tracked the length of his spine and ringed his neck exhibited long-healed tears and puncture wounds.

"So. Making the rounds, are you?" he said, in a quiet voice.

"Pardon?" she was surprised—most pokémon took on their trainers' mannerisms after a short time, and she had expected the old trainer's pokémon to be as laconic as he.

"I was asking if you were on the badge quest," the old vaporeon clarified.

"Oh, yes, I am. Did… you and your trainer fight in this league?"

"Years ago. We're from Kanto… I wasn't his first pokémon, but I've been with him a long time. I think we might've been one of the first teams to collect the badges, back when the league was first set up…" He paused, somehow giving the impression that he was smiling to himself.

There was the sound of the engine turning over, and then the boat slowly moved away from the dock. It set off at a leisurely pace, not fast enough to whip the wind or send up a spray.

"Old dreams, of course… tell me about yours."

Between the vaporeon's quiet voice and the noise of the engine, she almost didn't hear it.

"Mine…?"

"Yes. Indulge an old dog."

"Well… I want to make it to the tournament, at least. Maybe—"

"No, no… not your goals, hampered by realism. Your _dreams_."

She was silent for a moment, looking at the trees and mountains and the rapidly passing water.

"I… want to be the best. Ever. Beat all the records, win every tournament, every award. I want… people to fall silent for a second when I walk into a room… and… I want them to not care about who I am or what I look like, but only the fact that I am really, really, bloody good at what I do."

"I was planning on saying, 'just like everyone else, right?' but… that last bit I haven't heard that often."

"I—er, people used to tease me because of my eyes, because they're orange and all. Then they'd think up other ways to bother me, when that got old." She shrugged. "It was… tiresome."

"Ah," said the vaporeon, simply, knowingly. He looked up at her; his eyes had been averted and half-closed before, like he was about to fall asleep. Most of the pokémon that evolved from eevee, except for one or two exceptions like umbreon, had eyes that were a very dark shade—usually black, but occasionally discernibly blue or brown. This vaporeon's eyes were bright green.

"It seems we might have had a similar problem." He lowered his head, reassuming his relaxed pose. "They say your eyes are an indication of your true nature… but in my experience, they're really just sensory organs. Not really anything terribly special about them."

"Sort of like your… skin tone, or your hair?"

"Precisely. Not really that important. But as the white fawn knows, those that stick out become a target." He gave a little sigh. "When you find someone, or more than one, who appreciates those differences… that's where you want to be, I think."

The boat eventually pulled up to another dock, one in rather more disrepair than the one they'd left behind.

"Thank you for the conversation, earlier," the vaporeon said, as she reached down to get her bag.

"Thank you," she said. "I think you may have said some things I needed to hear."

"I'm sure you already knew them," he replied, that 'small smile' air about him again.

"I'll come and visit, if I'm ever in the neighborhood again," she promised.

"I would enjoy that," he said. "Now, get going. I believe the world is waiting."

x.x.x.x.x

Quarric Village was about halfway between Verdure Town and Porphyry City. A mining town, its livelihood was based mainly on the metals and ores that were plentiful in the region. Only a few small areas were mined at a time; if the operation got too large, the effect on the ecosystem and especially the pokémon could be both detrimental and not easily corrected.

They'd expected a small, quiet mountain hamlet where they could eat, heal their pokémon and spend a night indoors. What they got was a cluster of houses surrounded by as much confused, borderline-hysterical activity as a flipped-over anthill, illuminated by portable floodlights. Ground cars and jumpcraft were parked anywhere there was room; reporters and cameramen swarmed around, looking for anyone mildly important to interview; frontier police were everywhere. But in the midst of the chaos, a focal point slowly became apparent: the pokémon center.

On their way there, they were accosted by a female reporter wearing too heavy a jacket for the merely cool night, flanked by some guy with a TV camera.

"Trainers! What are your thoughts on the issue? How does it make you feel?"

"Um…" Matt blinked, almost blinded by the light mounted above the camera lens. "What issue?"

"Don't tell me you haven't _heard_," said the reporter in amazement, the light turning off.

"Heard what?" Moriko asked.

"Well…" the reporter looked a little embarrassed, "on second thought, I think you're a little young to be told about it if you don't already know…"

Matt made a barely audible growling noise. "Well thanks for your time, miss, but we've got to be going now, been walking for hours and all that. Goodbye!"

He half-led, half-dragged them away from the reporter.

"What's up with you?" Moriko asked, confused.

"I get really irritated when people tell me I look young, no idea why," he said lightly, "and plus I bet she's only a few years older than us… anyway, let's get to the pokémon center, I have a hunch…"

The pokécenter was the smallest they'd seen so far; it probably didn't have separate hotel-style rooms, just a common sleeping area with cots. It was also roped off with electric green 'police line – do not cross' tape and guarded by an arcanine, an aggron and a pair of military police in forest camouflage. The MPs inclined their rifles ever-so-slightly towards the horizontal as the three trainers walked up. Matt stopped Moriko and Russell about ten feet away from them, closing the remaining distance by himself.

"Evening, officers," said Matt, in his best talking-to-men-with-guns voice.

A jumpcraft took the opportunity to land at this point, its blue anti-gravity boosters roaring as it floated gracefully to the ground, so Moriko never heard the ensuing conversation.

The MP on the left was talking to Matt, while the aggron next to him was watching her and Russell, its expression unreadable. The pokémon was nearly seven feet tall, a rock- and steel-type with enormous defensive strength—and sky-blue eyes that looked odd in comparison to the rest of its tank-like exterior. While the arcanine was undoubtedly for pursuit-related purposes, the aggron was likely a bullet shield—which sounded cruel, but in truth the monster could probably be hit with anything up to and maybe including anti-tank ammunition without sustaining much damage.

But… for _what_? What was the threat? And from where? The four motley guards looked not so much like they were guarding _against_ something, but like they were trying to keep something in.

Matt turned and walked back to them. "Okay… they said we're allowed to go in and get our pokémon healed, but we're going to have to find somewhere else to sleep because we're not allowed to stay the night."

"Matt… what the hell is going on?" she asked, wearily.

"We're going to try to find out," he muttered.

x.x.x.x.x

The lights were dimmed in the 'center, except for the ones shining through the doors leading to the back treatment rooms. The mostly white linoleum leading to those doors had been scuffed and muddied, but no one had bothered to clean it up. The television in the tiny lounge was still on, forgotten.

There didn't seem to be anyone on duty. Matt started walking towards the doors to the back.

"Matt? Whatteryoudoing?" Moriko hissed, alarmed by the closed-down look of the 'center.

"Finding out what's going on, remember?" he stopped, about to push open the swinging door. "Come on. And act stupid," he said, stepping through.

She sighed and trotted after him, Russell following her silently.

The short hallway was brightly lit, coming to a T-intersection after a few paces. There were doors with frosted glass windows in either direction, some lit, some not. Matt stood at the junction in hallways for a few seconds as they caught up with him before setting off down the left-hand stretch. Moriko glanced down and noticed the muddy trail led mostly that way, and was augmented by droplets of blood.

He walked along the hallway with them close behind and stopped at the furthest door. He turned the handle, the door swinging open—

"Hey! What the fuck?"

A big MP—he looked taller than Russell—stepped out of the room with his rifle in hand and shut the door.

"What the hell are you kids doing in here?"

"The guys out front said we could heal our pokémon—" the outright fear in Matt's voice almost made her do a double take, but she resisted her impulse to look surprised. It _had_ to be an act. This was _Matt_. "—but when we got inside, it was all dark and there was nobody around. So we went looking f'r somebody…" he trailed off, artfully.

The MP had set his mouth in such a way that suggested that _somebody_ was going to get yelled at. "Look, the auto-heal machine is right out front, don't tell me you can't use it, all you do is put your pokéballs in the indents and hit the button… so get going and get out, all right?" He hefted his rifle warningly and they turned and left; Moriko snuck a glance over her shoulder as they turned the corner, but the MP was still standing there.

"Did you see what was in that room?" said Matt, after they were back in the pokécenter's main area.

"Was it a treatment room?" asked Russell. "Maybe they've got a wounded legendary or something."

"That would make sense, but somehow I'm thinking no," Matt answered, hopping over the attendant's desk. He slotted his three capture balls into the machine. "Anyone else?"

Moriko handed him her two pokéballs and Russell gave his three; the egg was still in his backpack.

The auto-heal machine had nine slots, the smallest capacity they made nowadays, and would take about five minutes. Matt put the lid down and hit the button; the machine started up with a small hum.

"I saw… something big and black, I think. On a table… but it was so quick before that MP saw us," said Moriko.

"Yeah, I think that's what I saw as well," said Matt.

They sat around in silence, Matt sitting on a swivel chair next to the healing machine, Russell leaning against the desk and Moriko sitting on it. They all tensed as the sound of the front doors of the center opening reached their ears; they heard the buzz of voices and the growl of engines for a few seconds before it was cut off. One of the military police from the front of the 'center appeared, tracking in more mud; Moriko wondered where everyone had been walking until she glanced down at her own boots and noticed they were caked in loamy mud as well. She guessed that it'd rained earlier (not hard to imagine, it'd been on and off most of the time they'd been walking) and the sudden activity outside had churned up all the soil. Funny she hadn't noticed until now, though.

"Reporters're getting a little rowdy," the military police officer was saying. "Go out the back when you're done, okay?"

They nodded; it was good advice—if the media personnel out there noticed that they'd been in here, they'd be bombarded with questions—but it was probably as much to keep the MPs at the front out of trouble as it was to help them.

After the machine beeped and they retrieved their healed pokémon, they went into the lounge and through another doorway, which led them to a storage area. A door there led them outside to a narrow grassy area that quickly gave way to the forest. They could see the stars clearly from here, although the glow from the myriad of floodlights could still be discerned. Moriko wondered briefly why there weren't any guards back here…

To their left was something large and winged, trying to look into a window without being seen.

Moriko gave a little gasp of surprise, which attracted the thing's attention: it seemed to turn and look at them before dropping to the ground, growling softly.

"What is it?" Russell muttered.

It had yellow, birdlike eyes that glowed in the dim light, but seemed to have a quadruped's body, not to mention the large, feathered wings.

"Just back off," it snarled. "I don't want any trouble, but if you want it, I can give it!"

"You're not… looking for someone, are you?" said Matt suddenly.

The thing froze before sitting back on its haunches carefully. "How did you know?" it asked quietly.

"Just a feeling. Who're you looking for?"

"My brother. How can you understand me? Humans don't understand pokémon."

"We cheat," said Matt. "Is your brother in there?"

"I… think so."

"What does he look like?"

"Well… like me," it said, hesitantly moving more into the light cast by the bare bulb above the door.

She was a griffin—an eagle's head and wings on a lion's body. Her pelt was black with areas of a dark reddish-brown on her paws, belly and wings, and stood about four feet tall or so at the shoulder.

"Are you sure he's in there?" asked Moriko.

The griffin-like pokémon nodded. "I saw them take him."

"Why?" she found herself saying; before the griffin even started speaking, she knew she wasn't going to like the answer.

The griffin took a deep breath. "He killed two cubs… two young humans… and they caught him after he'd killed the second one. They're going to kill him, aren't they?" she said, her voice filled with anxiety. If she'd been human, she probably would've been close to tears.

Moriko heard Russell take a quickly indrawn breath, remembering the dead trainer, probably; she squeezed his shoulder, trying to be vaguely reassuring.

"I… don't know," said Matt. He was lying; everyone knew what would happen to a pokémon who killed a human, especially in a case as clear-cut as this one. They were probably delaying while they analyzed genetic information—the griffin pokémon did say they'd found him _after_ he killed the second one.

"Where… did he kill the humans?" Moriko said, still with that feeling that what she was asking wasn't really coming from her own mind.

"The first one was on the plains…the other was not far from here."

"There was another human killed somewhere else, near a big human city. That wasn't him, was it?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so…"

"Do you know why he killed those humans?" asked Russell.

The griffin pokémon rustled and flexed her wings; she was seemed annoyed and extremely worried. "Look… I don't really know why I'm talking to you, anyway… hold on! They don't know for sure that he killed them… but I've been talking to you three! You're going to tell them what I said, aren't you?" she said, her voice almost rising to an angry shriek.

"There's no need for that," said Matt heavily, "they already know. Psychic interrogation is rather eff—"

"Nigriff are dark pokémon! No psychic can get inside our minds," she snapped angrily, but with a small note of pride.

"Then they're just getting the evidence processed before they execute him or move him somewhere else," said Matt, making a dismissive gesture.

"So what are you telling me?" said the nigriff, after a pause. She'd be haughty, coldly intelligent if they'd met her on a more normal day—it was starting to show through more: before she'd been very much the frightened adolescent.

"We found the trainer on the plains after your brother had finished with him. I want to find out, from him, why he'd do something like that." He sighed, sounded profoundly tired. "They're going to kill your brother. Do you want to say goodbye?"

x.x.x.x.x

Knock, knock.

"Ye—you damn kids! I told you to get—what the _hell_?" The military police officer blinked in astonishment at the sight of the nigriff behind Russell and Moriko, a smaller version of the one chained to an operating table behind him.

"We've got a relative of the prisoner here," said Matt. He sounded amazingly official. "It's not too late for a familial visit, is it?"

The MP opened and shut his mouth a couple times before managing to grunt, "I need to speak to my commanding officer."

He shut the door; only a few minutes passed before it was opened again, but they felt agonizingly long.

"All right. It can come in, but you'd better warn it that if it does _anything_ I perceive as a threat, I will shoot."

"I can guarantee that she understood you," said Matt. "And I'd like to talk to the nigriff after her."

The MP frowned before shrugging. "Whatever. But you leave your pokémon and backpack with those two," he said, inclining his head at Moriko and Russell.

They stood aside to let the female nigriff through. It was rather difficult in the narrow corridor, trying to reconcile their large backpacks and her huge wings, folded as they were, but eventually the pokémon walked carefully into the room, her claws clicking on the tiled floor, disappearing as the door was shut on her.

A moment or two later a graying man in a frontier police uniform emerged from another door, flanked by a machoke with the normal gray coloration—almost unusual after the wild machoke and machamp she was used to seeing at Professor Willow's.

"So…" he said, his eyes flicking over the three of them, "you brought the nigriff's… relative in."

"His sister, yes," said Matt, with the barest shadow of uncertainty in his voice: this time, it sounded genuine.

"Well I hope she knows how to behave, because if anything happens it's your fault, the three of you," he said in a slow, drawling voice.

They had nothing to say to that; instead, they continued to watch him with varying mixtures of dislike and apprehension.

"His sister says he killed the trainer out on the plains and the one you caught him for, not the one in Porphyry," said Matt suddenly.

"Two in Porphyry now," he corrected, as if he was telling someone the capital of Kanto was Saffron City, not Celadon. "But we had a feeling that those were done by someone else anyway—the kid out on the highway and the first girl in Porphyry bit it a few hours apart, and I don't think any flying pokémon aside from maybe a pidgeot 'r something could cover the distance in that narrow a time space. I think I'd like to have a chat with the beast's sister, though—the inclination towards pointless killings is partly genetic, they say—"

"No," said Matt, shaking his head. "I talked to her—she's young and as bewildered by her brother's actions as any of us are. She wasn't taking part in the murders."

The officer looked unconvinced, but he shrugged. "You're probably right—the labs say there wasn't any foreign genetic material that they can detect on the Porphyry bodies, so there's no evidence even if it _was_ her."

The door to the operating room flew open suddenly—the frontier police officer's hand flew to his jacket and his machoke tensed, but the female nigriff pushed past them and ran down the corridor, her keening, anguished cries echoing as she went.

Matt nudged his backpack into a corner with his foot and tossed his trainer belt on top of it before disappearing into the room the griffin-like pokémon had just exited.

"Why's there so much attention to this case? Don't people get killed in this region all the time?" Moriko found herself demanding.

"Hurt, slashed, banged-up, yes—all the time. Killed outright, less common," the officer replied. "And even then, it's usually a dangerous or abused pokémon snapping and mauling their trainer, or occasionally a man-eater. But the bastard in there was killing trainers and eating just the heart… if he was a man-eater, he would've eaten more, nigriff are big pokémon if you haven't noticed…" he paused, scratching his stubble. "Another trainer happened to catch him right after the fact… this was her hometown, you know—"

"Whose hometown?" she interjected.

"The girl who got her heart torn out in the forest. Whole town's in mourning, apparently she was one of the first to go out on her badge quest…"

"By the endless night…" Russell muttered, using an obscure oath she'd only heard him use once or twice before, and kept forgetting to ask about.

"So why're you hanging around, anyway?" she said.

"Me personally? I'm keeping an eye on you three… people don't walk into a military-controlled building with a wild pokémon, intending to talk to a condemned prisoner that often," he said with a sardonic grin.

x.x.x.x.x

"Matt? Would you just say _something_?"

Matthew had emerged from the treatment-room-turned-holding-cell looking pale and somewhat shaken, and had refused to say a word in spite of Moriko and Russell's best efforts at badgering him.

They'd walked until the lights of the village disappeared from sight behind a mountain; it was hard going in the dark, following the ridiculous pace Matt had set—the three of them were nearly running—and Moriko had stumbled and nearly fallen multiple times.

Matt had finally stopped when the trees had given way to a beach leading out into a small lake. Still not speaking, he'd set up his tent, unrolled his sleeping bag, kicked off his boots, lay down and presumably fallen asleep right away, given that he'd forgotten to close up his tent.

She'd sighed and zipped it up for him.

"What the hell happened to him, do you think? And thanks," she said to Russell, who had set up her tent and was starting on his own.

"I truly have no idea. D'you have the time?"

"'S nearly two. Gods…" She sighed. "I dunno about you, but I'm liking the idea of having to go to Porphyry City less and less…"

"Don't worry, we'll spend as little time as possible there," said Russell, rising to his feet and dusting the sand off his hands. "Matt and I were just joking around about… all that."

"I'm sure," she said dryly. She glanced out at the lake, the stars and gibbous moon reflecting off the dark, still water, and gave a sigh.

"Are you all right?"

"Hmm? Oh… I'm fine. I just feel like I'm about to fall asleep where I stand."

"Alright then. Good night?"

"Good night…"

x.x.x.x.x

Eh… I completed this while I was supposed to be completing my extended essay. 2500 words so far:dies: Why does general relativity have to be so DIFFICULT!

Bah.

Anyway… in the past I've always been really bad at this sort of chapter… you know, involving the police or the government or whatever. Hopefully this one wasn't as mind-crushingly bad as some of my earlier attempts. I'm still a little worried that some things don't make sense, so if you notice anything weird, please say so in your review so I can fix it.

So yes… review, or I'll be sad and curl up in my basement and start writing bad Harry Potter slash… xD


	15. Chapter 14: Vainglory

Chapter 14: Vainglory

From downstairs, there came the sound of dishes clinking together, the smell of coffee… people talking, their voices muffled…

She got out of her warm bed, legs swinging over its edge to touch the floor, felt the soft carpet under her feet…

Moriko blinked, the pleasant surroundings melting away like mist and giving way to the black of her sleeping bag and the olive green of the tent, the dream-sensations fading to silence, cold and dimness.

She had a moment of worry as her exhausted mind tried to make sense of this before realizing that her uncle's house in Port Littoral was over a thousand kilometers away, and in any case, this was where she was supposed to be: in a cramped tent on a stony beach, deep in the Gaiien Wild.

She gave a sigh, partly out of a cheated feeling: she would've spent the night in an actual bed in an actual building, if it hadn't been for that damn psychotic nigriff. The other part—a very small part, she insisted in her mind—was due to a regret that she'd ever left that familiar city.

_Forget about it_, she told herself sternly, rolling over. _You loathed it there_.

Despite her mind being quite blank and the leaden feeling that seemed to have permeated every muscle in her body, she eventually came to the conclusion that further sleep was going to be impossible. Sighing again, she extracted herself from her cocoon of down and various synthetic materials, and stepped out of the tent.

Moriko shivered as the breeze coming off the lake covered her bare arms and legs with gooseflesh. The sky was still fairly dark, but the east was starting to exhibit the glow of dawn. She blinked owlishly, trying to make her eyes focus properly, and wondered what time it was.

Rather belatedly, she noticed that there was a fire burning: the dark figure hunched beside it was probably Matt, judging by the build. As she watched, he added another piece of wood, but there was something vaguely automatic about the movement. Something told her he was not completely recovered from his strange mood.

Across from him, in the dimness, a pair of yellow, birdlike eyes opened and turned towards her.

The surge of adrenaline that accompanied the appearance of the nigriff was enough to wake her up entirely.

"Matt? Matthew?" she said, standing still. He didn't respond. "Matt?" she repeated, drawing closer, watching the nigriff.

He was utterly unresponsive, even as she came closer and closer, until she reached out to touch his shoulder. He grabbed her hand just before her fingertips came in contact with the fabric of his T-shirt. She almost cried out, first in surprise and then in pain; she felt the bones grinding together but clamped her jaw as obstinacy took over.

"Don't," he said, simply.

She drew her hand back quickly after he released it, massaging it while trying to control a smoldering rage in the pit of her stomach that wanted so very badly to burst into an inferno. She bit back a torrent of expletives that would have absolutely no effect on the unresponsive trainer.

"So what are you doing here?" she asked the nigriff, harshly.

"I couldn't think of anywhere else to go," she replied, quite flat and unemotional. The voice was the same—it was the sister from last night. "But you seem to be in a bad mood, and he's not talking, so if the other male isn't interested either I'll leave."

"Interested in what?"

"I want to be trained for battle. I've got nothing left, no family, no friends, but if I have a trainer..." She seemed to shrug, and put her head down on her paws.

"I… I've been looking for another pokémon… you said you were a dark type?" asked Moriko.

"Dark and fighting," she grunted.

Fighting… that meant she'd have two fighting-types, and it was usually a good idea to have all different types on a team, but the nigriff would be able to help with the psychic-type weakness Tarahn and Rufus shared.

"I'll be your trainer, unless you get a better offer, I guess."

"If you like," said the nigriff. She paused before adding, "I think you'll have to catch me first, though. There's no point in you training me if I'm stronger than you."

Moriko nodded. She knew it wasn't going to be _that_ easy.

x.x.x.x.x

She'd fetched her trainer's belt, feeling bad that she hadn't let Rufus or Tarahn out for an evening's hunt due to the confusion of the previous night. The oxhaust had proved to be quite adept at hunting, Tarahn had informed her, the day after leaving Verdure Town, which was fortunate, considering his enormous appetite. He'd apparently crunched down an entire squarrel—the dark-type was usually far too quick for a newly-evolved oxhaust to grab on his own, but this particular one was either fatally inquisitive or profoundly stupid—fur and all, before going on to strip a stantler buck right down to the bones. The fire-type had appeared in the early morning, quite innocent looking due to the remarkable cleansing power of his fiery breath, but Tarahn had assured her, with considerable relish, that it had been quite the bloodbath.

She reflected on, for a second or two, what a bloodbath the nigriff's brother must've created, somewhere in the forest, before shaking her head in an attempt to dislodge the thought.

The nigriff was standing in the rocky sand, one wing extended as she idly preened it. "Are you ready?" she said, seeing Moriko approach.

"Quite." She hadn't been sure whether to use Tarahn or Rufus; the oxhaust would have a type advantage, but then again, the nigriff almost certainly knew flying-type techniques, and he would be at risk from those. On the other hand, Tarahn would not have a type advantage, but neither would the nigriff.

"Choose your fighter, then," said the dark-type, with the barest hint of derision: it was the old insult, that humans needed pokémon to do everything for them.

"Go, Tarahn!"

The raigar glanced around as he coalesced on the sand, before turning his attention towards the nigriff.

"Hey birdie." Moriko didn't need to see his face to know he was grinning. "Fall out of your nest—huh?" he said, confused, as she seemed to melt into the air. "Oh damn—ugh!" he grunted as she reappeared and struck him bodily, glowing with dark energy in a faint attack.

"Use spark," said Moriko. "Don't get too close."

Tarahn growled as his body was wreathed by arcs of electricity; the nigriff spread her magnificent wings and rose into the air, but the ball of electrical energy the raigar loosed hit her full on. She screeched in pain and the smell of burnt feathers and hair reached Moriko's nose.

The nigriff continued to fly in a circle around Moriko and Tarahn; abruptly, her entire body glowed reddish orange, and she seemed to increase in size. Moriko wasn't sure what attack it was, but the nigriff had almost certainly caused her strength to temporarily increase.

"Try spark again, Tarahn," she said.

The second sphere of electrical energy smashed into the nigriff's body much like the first, but this time a similarly sized ball of dark brown energy emerged from the point where the spark attack had struck. It spread out over the rest of her body and the griffin pokémon seemed to grow in size even more, before giving a screech and dropping in front of Tarahn.

She struck him a blow that sent him flying; Moriko was nearly hit by nine stone of angry raigar, but threw herself out of the way just in time. Tarahn skidded to a stop, rolling in the sand.

"Are you all right?" she called to Tarahn while trying to keep one eye on the nigriff, who had shrunk in size after delivering the blow. Her revenge attack had been pretty devastating.

The electric-type managed to rise to his feet and walk back to stand in front of his trainer. He had a trickle of slightly purplish blood running out of his mouth, but it didn't look like anything was broken, just really bruised.

The nigriff made a noise that was part derisive screech, part squawking laugh. Tarahn growled and leapt, not waiting for a command: his claws and teeth sank into various parts of the nigriff's front. She gave an outraged cry and raked him with her claws and beak, but the poison had got into her bloodstream. The two pokémon drew apart, panting and bleeding from various wounds, but the nigriff was clearly the worse off. Her legs seemed to weaken and she slumped to the ground, eyes unfocused.

Moriko took the super ball she'd grabbed from her pack out of her pocket and enlarged it before tossing it at the dark-type. The griffin pokémon was converted into bluish energy and drawn into the metallic embrace of the ball, which snapped shut, falling to the sand. It gave a few convulsive wiggles before falling still.

"Good job," said Tarahn, between breaths. "You finally caught a pokémon."

"Thanks to you," she replied, retrieving the ball and ignoring the very slight tinge of sarcasm in the raigar's voice. "Nice work, kitty. Do you need some super potion?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice," he said, licking one of the long scratches the nigriff had given him.

She retrieved the bottle—as well as an antidote, remembering the nigriff—from her bag before spraying some of the astringent on the raigar's wounds; he flinched a little at the sting, but the lacerations closed almost immediately.

"Sorry I didn't let you out last night. We didn't get a pokécenter room, because… they found out who was responsible for the murders."

"It's okay, I'll just run around for a bit now. And who?"

"The sibling of that nigriff you just helped me capture."

Tarahn made a sputtering noise. "What? Why'd you do that? Some things run in families, you know!"

"I know! But we talked to her last night and it was like she couldn't believe what he'd been doing. So I think she's all right," she insisted, although the raigar still looked skeptical.

"Well, whatever. You probably know better than me; I've only fought her. But be careful, all right?"

"Of course. You go play now, I'd better heal her…"

Moriko tossed the super ball, the nigriff appearing on the sand in the same position she'd left it, wracked with pain.

"I've got some medicines here, if you want them," she said, drawing slowly closer.

The nigriff snapped her beak at her; although it looked reflexive, Moriko added, "or I can just leave you in your ball to eventually lose consciousness as the poison does its work, and not heal you until we reach the next town, which is five days away or so."

The nigriff made an annoyed sound but she grunted, "fine. I'll have your potions."

Moriko got her to drink the antidote, which quickly neutralized Tarahn's poison, then made her stand up, so she could apply the last of the super potion to the scratches on her front and the various electrical burns.

"There," she said. "Feel better?"

"Somewhat," the nigriff conceded.

"Oh good… My name is Moriko, by the way."

The dark-type gave a curt nod. "Liona."

"What was that attack you used that made you more powerful?"

"Bulk up, I believe."

"Ah, that makes sense. Okay… would you like to stay out here, or go back in the ball?"

"I will rest here until it is time for us to leave," Liona said, turning and walking back to the fire where Matt was still sitting, as impassive as ever.

Moriko glanced around, before tossing Rufus's ball out onto the sand as well.

He appeared, huge as always, in a flash of red light. "Hmm? Where are we? Weren't we going to stop in a town?" he asked, turning his huge head this way and that.

"There was some trouble," she said, feeling immensely tired. "I ended up not letting you guys out at all, last night, so… amuse yourself, I guess. I'm going to go back to bed… it's only around five but I've had about three hours of sleep for the night so far…"

He looked like he still had a few questions about what the 'trouble' was, but instead he said, "all right. I think I'll go and see if there's anything to eat."

"Sure. If you see a mooskeg, try to bring it back here without killing it, I still want one of those."

Rufus grinned. "Yeah, I know. I'll try to be back before you guys leave."

"I'm sure you will be. Have fun."

x.x.x.x.x

Porphyry City was a coastal town, a sprawling mess of countless buildings and winding streets, all ringed by swampland. Moriko had heard for most of her life that Port Littoral was the only real city in Gaiien, but looking at Porphyry now, she knew that to be incorrect.

Their journey from the approximate area of Quarric Village had passed without incident. Matt had recovered from his strange turn later in the day, after Moriko had caught the nigriff. He'd apologized to her and Russell; talking to the killer nigriff had shaken him quite badly, he'd explained, but he'd tell them all about it later, when he'd had time to think. Moriko felt there was certainly more to it than that, but she had kept quiet.

Their trek had eased as they located the road again; they no longer needed to worry about finding places to ford rivers or to check their GPS modules constantly to make sure they were going in the right direction. The road was flat, graded, had bridges, and it brought them smoothly to their destination.

The mountains degraded more and more as they approached the Lacuna Sea; before long, they were little more than hills, which eventually disappeared into a sea of partially submerged trees, floating plants and a general smell of decaying organic matter. The swamps were incredibly treacherous, otherwise Moriko would have ventured in to see if she could find a water pokémon she liked.

It was eventually gathered that Porphyry was actually two cities, both dubious to varying degrees but achieving it in different ways. The upper city was the rich half, built on higher ground—posh hotels, the homes of Gaiien's wealthiest (or at least where they might spend a season), restaurants, expensive shops, even a stadium. Around it, like a leaking honey jar, the flies had gathered: casinos, bars, brothels, clubs…

Lower Porphyry catered to the real people: the farmers, growing fruit and nuts on the rolling hills; the fishermen, braving the wild seas or dark marshes to dredge creatures from their depths; the sailors, who brought exotic cargoes from all over the continent; the trainers, wandering in by land, by water and occasionally by air…

The three wandered up a street crowded with vendors, their stalls and their customers, the odors of cooking food, spices and flowers mingling and playing heavily on the senses, especially on those of a trainer who had been living on stale crackers and water for the last couple of days…

They made it to the pokémon center without succumbing to temptation.

Porphyry City was too large to offer trainers the luxury of their own rooms; the prevailing opinion was that if they wanted privacy, they could go to a hotel and pay for it. Indeed, the three of them almost had to pay for their sleeping arrangements, whether they wanted privacy or not; there were only two cots left available at first, but as Matt was wrangling with the attendant, a trainer wanting to check out had freed a third.

The sleeping area was spacious and high-ceilinged, with one end slightly raised. Sunlight slanted in through windows that looked a bit out of place, while the stone walls were obscured by rows of lockers. The cots had probably been in rows once, but over time they probably could have formed the basis for an interesting experiment in random motion. Now they were positioned quite haphazardly, most in small clusters of three or four. The stone floor had been worn smooth by seasons of the cots' metal supports scraping along.

There were a few trainers sleeping, two or three reading, and several talking quietly due to the echo achieved in the large space. There was the echo of pokémon speech as well: Moriko first noticed a pair of clawbit whispering together at the end of one of the cots, while a mightyena sat with its head on its paws, watching them idly with half-closed eyes.

The three of them located the available cots, their numbers painted onto the metal frames at more-or-less regular intervals. They were the focus of a few glances, especially as the metal screeched along the stone, but once they'd lifted the flimsy things completely off the ground and started carrying them, the other trainers had gone back to talking or reading.

As they arranged the beds in a reasonably empty corner of the elevated portion of the room, Moriko realized something about the building, so odd in comparison to the other 'centers they'd been in, which more or less followed the same floor plan.

This pokémon center had once been a church, and rather an old one, by the look of it. Years and years old it had to be, maybe a hundred or so. Nobody built with plain stone like this anymore.

But… hadn't the region only been open for settlement for around fifty years?

"Moriko?"

"Hmm? What?" she said, turning, broken out of her reverie.

"I was saying, where do you guys want to go now? The pokémon don't need to be fed for a few hours, so I was thinking we could probably get something to eat," said Matt, perched on his cot.

Moriko glanced at her watch. "Yeah, sure. It's only two, maybe we could go and challenge the gym leader after that?"

Matt shook his head. "I bet the schedule for the day is full by now, but… I suppose we should check right away, anyway."

"They don't offer free food here, do they?" said Russell, glancing around, but there were no other doors aside from the archway leading to the front area, where the healing machine and various attendants were located.

"Just to pokémon, in the basement, but apparently we can get some rather good food from street vendors for pretty cheap," said Matt.

"I hate when things cost money," said Russell, giving an exaggerated sigh. "It's so _unusual_."

x.x.x.x.x

The schedule of opponents was posted on the wall of the Porphyry Gym. Just as Matt had predicted, it was full for the day, but also for the next day, and the next. He'd gone in to sign them up with the receptionist; studying the lists a bit more carefully, Moriko and Russell had noticed that Angela, David, Victoria and Mackenzie's names had all been entered in for fighting times two days hence.

"How the hell did they get ahead of us? We should be a day ahead of them!" said Moriko. She knew she was being a bit petty, competing over who was progressing faster than whom, but she had been sure they were in the lead.

Russell shook his head. "I dunno. That's really strange… maybe they found a shortcut?"

"Here's Matt back, let's ask him about it…"

"We've got a bit of a wait," Matt said as he walked up to them. "We're fighting Friday afternoon."

"Three days? What's with all the trainers?" Moriko asked, feeling annoyed. _So much for spending as little time as possible…_

Matt shrugged. "This is the peak season for the year, when all the new trainers set out. When you consider all the little towns on the coast, on the plains, or elsewhere… let's say each one leaks one or two kids. That's a fair number of trainers… and not all of them are new. Some people like to challenge gyms repeatedly for the practice. Plus, the gym leader is only doing five battles a day," he added, with a bit of disgust.

"But… I thought gyms were supposed to have an opening and a closing time only, and fit as many trainers in as they could," said Russell. "I mean, as far as I know…"

"It's one of the reasons why Porphyry's an actual city," said Matt, shrugging. "If trainers have to wait, it means they'll be bored, and bored sixteen-year-olds need things to do, places to eat since it isn't free, places to sleep if the 'center is full… It keeps the money flowing, see?"

"What a scheme," said Moriko. "Why aren't any of the other gym towns doing that?"

"I can't see the trainers suggesting it to them," said Matt, with a sardonic smile, "but I think one of the factors would be that this is probably the only 'center that can get away with not providing trainers with free food. They're probably telling the league that there's no space for a cafeteria and lounge and such."

"So… three days," said Russell. "Any ideas how to spend it?"

"Training, definitely," said Matt. "It would suck to an unparalleled degree to wait, lose, and have to wait some more."

Moriko nodded, trying not to think about how horrible it would be to be the one person who lost, and subsequently held the entire group back. The shame would be unbearable… there would be nothing they could do, aside from split up and hope the other person found some new people to travel with… but she didn't think any of the three of them could do that, especially not after the boy on the plains…

At the same time, the thought of three solid days spent training made her weary muscles ache and her stomach knot. Couldn't they take a break?

"We should certainly spend the time in training," she said, "but for today, why don't we split up and wander? I'm sure you two want to find out exactly why they call it Sin City"—Russell's face colored a bit when she said that, but Matt was impassive—"and I would really like to look in some of these weird stores and get something to eat and all…"

"Wait," said Russell, "I'm not sure about the bit about splitting up, I mean, I'd be fine, but you're a… well, you're a girl and it might not be—"

"Safe? I'm sure you're just as in danger from rapists as I am, this is Sin City after all," she said dryly, studying her fingernails so as not to have to look at him. "And besides, I've got my pokémon." She risked a glance at the two guys—Matt looked amused, whereas Russell had reddened even more.

"I guess… that's true," he said, eventually.

"Sounds fair," said Matt. "What say we meet back at the 'center at sixish?"

"Sure," she agreed, nodding.

"Lovely. Ta!"

"Are you sure you'll be all right?" Russell asked quietly as Matt sauntered off into the crowds.

"Of course. You need to shave."

"I know."

"Relax," she said, firmly. "Stop worrying about me, go get something to eat, maybe some dessert, a cheap hooker, whatever takes your fancy—"

"I'd _never_—"

"I was just joking! I'm sorry. Maybe Matt would, and that's why he actually liked an idea of mine for once—"

"You don't have a lot of faith in men, do you?" he said, but he was smiling a bit.

"Not a whole lot, sorry. It's the testosterone. Sometimes it tells you to do strange things. It's just a whisper, occasionally, for me, but it must be like a stadium roar for you," she said, grinning.

"That's one way of putting it," Russell admitted. "You're sure? If anything happens—"

"I am going to be completely fine."

"Well… don't be late, okay? Otherwise I'm coming to find you—"

"_Go_," said Moriko, pushing him into the crowd. He waved as he looked back; she waved in return and watched him disappear.

It was… sweet, that he would be so concerned, but that concern was ultimately misplaced. She could take care of herself… _really_.

It was probably a good idea that she hadn't mentioned she was going to go look for a fighting-type arena given the dubious name of the "Pit", of course…

x.x.x.x.x

Uh, yeah. School sucks. Mm… Moriko caught a pokémon! Let us all hold hands and eat pocky! n.n

Sorry about the wait. In other news, this story has been going for six months and I am still not tired of it! YES! (has totally jinxed it) xD

Please review! I can feel myself slipping to the dark side—Snape and Lupin are starting to look better and better together! eek! o.o


	16. Chapter 15: Life as War

Chapter 15: Life as War

Matthew loitered next to a vendor, leaning against a section of wall while he devoured some mutton-on-a-stick. Porphyry was like Port Littoral in a lot of ways, the difference in the fact that Porphyry was several hundred kilometers further to the south and not on the coast facing most other settled regions. It had a certain lawless quality that he found he was enjoying immensely. _This_ was what one's pokémon quest should really feel like…

For a region that was supposed to be under-populated, there certainly were a lot of people here. The diversity was amazing to behold. He watched as a trainer walked by, chatting animatedly with her clefable, her bubble gum pink hair contrasting merrily with her dark complexion. A young man with a sneasel perched on his shoulder wandered from stall to stall while an older trainer on a bulbull slowly made his way up the street.

Matt tossed the metal skewer into the box of used ones on the side of the vendor's stall and wondered for a moment whether the saleswoman washed them before she reused them. Shrugging eventually, he pulled a battered, water-stained scrap of card out of his pocket and gave it a glance before replacing it.

Well, he'd run out of options; he was going to have to start asking around…

x.x.x.x.x

Russell sat in an airy restaurant, morosely picking through the remains of a salad. It wasn't the most masculine dish of all time, but after nearly a week and a half of protein, some fat, and lots and lots of carbohydrates, he found he couldn't even remember what a vitamin _was_.

He'd tried to find a reputable-looking restaurant, but it hadn't actually been that hard. He'd had this image of the city as being resplendent with whores and taverns and, well… other things like that. Not so. Admittedly, the middle section of the city was what it was, but…

The egg was bothering him. He'd left it with the staff at the 'center, just in case it happened to hatch, but apparently there was a pretty low chance of that. Pokémon eggs of that sort could usually only begin to hatch while they were moving, which was kind of odd, but then again most things about pokémon eggs and what hatched from them were odd, too…

He managed to eat some vegetable soup with bread rolls instead of crackers. The thought of crackers made him sick. Anything salty or dry made him sick, really. Maybe staying in Porphyry for another three days wasn't quite as bad as it sounded—if he ate nothing but vegetable dishes in the ensuing time, maybe he'd be able to survive the trip to the next gym town.

He sighed, staring pensively out into the street. Moriko had been acting a bit odd since… well, since they'd left Port Littoral. Most likely, something was bothering her and she was taking it out on him, via jokes and insinuations he'd been too embarrassed to properly respond to. Which, of course, was the whole point…

For someone who'd never dated, as far as he knew, Moriko had a pretty dirty mind. She probably thought he was a prudish idiot. Well, he was sort of a prude… but Moriko thinking he was an idiot? That was bothering him more than the egg, the city, and his eating habits put together.

x.x.x.x.x

Moriko stared up at the building, its size somewhere between a gym and a stadium. It was situated in the richer, dryer center of the city, and appeared to be fairly modern, unlike the motley assortment of architecture that made up most of Porphyry.

The Pit—or rather, the Porphyry City Center for Free Battles—was not what she was expecting. She'd envisioned a back-alley doorway leading down into a dim, smoky bar or tavern, and somewhere in the back, fierce, bloody and lawless fighting would be taking place.

This place was clean; free of graffiti, with a pair of enormous old maples planted out in front and a few benches in their shade. The foyer contained little more than a security and information desk and a couple of video phones. As she drew further into the building, the walls became covered in photos and display cases, all featuring moments and awards from various battles. The floor was tiled with stone, there was some sort of registration desk in the corner, and in the center of the room…

She wondered later how she could have possibly noticed it last.

At the center of the room was a large statue, a block of dark marble carved into the shape of two pokémon fighting.

The majority of pokémon tended to conform to the shape and behavior of another, non-pokémon animal. There were varying degrees of conformity, but most pokémon had a counterpart. Most people learned this in school early on, despite the fact that it was quite rare to see an actual dog or horse.

These pokémon were also comparable to normal animals. But just barely.

The one on the left was crouched on its hoofed hind legs, its muscled arms raised to point six enormous, reptilian claws at its attacker and its jaw open to reveal fangs that looked distinctly out of place with the rest of its sheep-like features. Along with the huge, curving ram's horns, the vaguely lion-like tail and the useless vestigial wings, it was apparent that this monster was Aricaust, demon of shadow and flame.

But its attacker…

She'd learned what a demon pokémon was, and the name of one of them, but not how many there were, or if there were even others. But if there were others…

This was probably one of them…

Start with a wolf. Make it huge, with tree-trunk limbs; give it enormous claws and replace the tail with a stump. Give it a large, heavy jaw and cover its face in what might have been some sort of bone or metal plate. Stretch the vertebrae into spikes.

It was on its hind legs, forelegs poised a second away from striking the other.

It was just a statue, but it evoked a strange sort of sensation, much like when Professor Hawthorn had given them the lecture about demon pokémon in her last few minutes of Pokémon Theory class. She wondered if it was some sort of memory, trying to get her attention, but no, it didn't have the same sort of hollowness… No, in fact, it was more like a worried feeling, as if she was standing on the edge of an abyss, wide and unfathomable, and in its depths—

"May I help you, miss?"

The voice broke her out of her reverie. She looked up, startled, into the hawk-yellow eyes of an older man.

"Uh, I… I was—"

"Looking at our statue?"

"…Yes. It is… strange."

"Many people are entranced by the _Statua Diabola_," he said, in a soft baritone. "It depicts a battle between the demons of our world."

"Only two?"

"No one can be sure how many there were, but have since been forgotten. This sculpture originally consisted of images of three."

"What happened to the third?"

"Lost," he said, simply. Moriko looked at the base of the statue and realized that it would have been a triangle once, but one of the points had broken off sometime in the distant past, leaving a vaguely trapezoidal shape. She moved a few paces to the right; from a different angle, it became more apparent that Aricaust and the… other one were not facing each other directly, but at an angle.

"Is it an original?" she asked.

"Yes. Reconstructed to some degree, but otherwise intact."

She tried to imagine what shape the missing demon would take, but gave up, unable to envision something twisted and mutated enough.

"So… what can I do for you, miss? Forgive me if I am in error, but I do not think you are here to admire ancient art," he said, with a slight smile.

She blinked, studied him for a moment. The older man was—well, he had to be older, you couldn't be young and have that much gray hair, could you?—dressed in the loose clothing of a fighter, probably one of the sort who trained their bodies alongside their pokémon.

"I have a gym battle in a few days, and I need somewhere to train," she said.

"Ah, the poison gym? Well, you've come to the right place…"

x.x.x.x.x

In accordance with the tradition of necessity shared by inner-city gyms, stadiums and so forth, the majority of the Pit lay underground. Moriko followed the older fighter—who eventually introduced himself as Marshall—down a number of flights of stairs lit by bare electric bulbs, and then through a narrow, mostly concrete hallway. Pipes and wires of various colors snaked across the ceiling.

"Aside from the first floor, you might be able to tell we don't hold that much stock in appearances, here."

"How could you build something like this in a _swamp_?" she asked.

"It was a real challenge, I understand." She couldn't see his face, but something about his tone suggested he was happily reminiscing. "I believe they had to dig down to the bedrock, and possibly more. But we're built on rock, and that's what counts. Mind the puddles."

She made sure to avoid the occasional patches of water; she had boots on, so getting wet wasn't an issue, but slipping and falling onto a concrete floor was something she wasn't hoping to do anytime soon.

Presently Marshall opened a door, and Moriko was hit by a wash of sound and scent. It was a large room that looked exactly like a normal weight or exercise area at a health club or similar establishment, aside from the fact that nearly everyone using the equipment wasn't human.

"This is one of our weight rooms," he said, above the cacophony of creaking metal and the occasional grunt. "The machines have all been adapted for pokémon use and feature increased durability, and weight and size where applicable."

Moriko let her gaze travel across the room. Machoke seemed to be the favorites here, but there were a couple of oxhaust, a few dark, muscular pokémon that resembled bipedal lizards, and a poliwrath also pumping iron. What she guessed to be more speed-oriented pokémon, like hitmonchan and breloom, could be seen further to the back on exercise bikes.

"This particular room is more suited to the more-or-less human-shaped pokémon, but we have a couple of smaller rooms that can be adapted for the more unusual fighting-types—heracross, for example."

She nodded; he shut the door and they continued on.

"Do you get many overseas trainers?" she asked, as they descended another flight of stairs.

"Quite often. A lot of them come with parents and submit to boredom after a few days. Training and the prospect of a battle or two usually piques their interests. And we do offer training for non-fighting types, if you were wondering, but like I said, the weight rooms are more suited towards humanshapes."

The remaining floors were an assortment of training areas: padded rooms for practicing throws and falls; a room full of treadmills; a room full of punching bags, and so on. One that stuck in Moriko's mind was a room where balls of various compositions were shot at varying speeds, with the intent to improve evasive ability.

"Apparently, only an alakazam using teleport can dodge the balls at the highest velocity setting," Marshall had commented, before shutting the door. "A more advanced training area, let's say."

x.x.x.x.x

"So, did you like the tour?" he asked, when they were back on the main floor.

"Yeah, this place seems like it would be pretty good. What was it that you, personally, do here?"

"I'm a… senior manager, let's say. What pokémon were you thinking of training here?"

"Well, I have a raigar, an oxhaust and a nigriff, and I was planning on training them all, if I could." She gave a little sigh. "I'm guessing this isn't free, is it?"

"We charge local trainers around five hundred per pokémon per session, which is an entire day. Foreigners we charge extra if we can," he added with a grin.

_Five hundred a pokémon…_ So, if she came here tomorrow and the next day, and then let them rest up the day of the match… That'd be three thousand, but… it'd be worth it for sure. Two days entirely spent battling and weight training? They'd all gain a few levels at the very least.

"So, we get to use the space, have battles and use the healing machines when needed. Is there anything else?" she asked.

"Water is free," said Marshall, "and—oh, we skipped that floor—we offer showers and massages, and there's a hot tub as well."

"It sounds almost too good to be true," Moriko commented, a bit wryly.

"It definitely would be, if we weren't subsidized by the government," he replied blandly. "Shall I see you here tomorrow?"

"Why, yes," she said, checking her watch. "And I'll probably have a couple of friends with m—oh damn, I'm late. Sorrynicetalkingtoyou!"

Marshall chuckled a bit as she ran out the doors and into the street. "Youth today, always in a hurry."

x.x.x.x.x

Moriko managed to make it back to the 'center at a few minutes past six, bursting into the sleeping area only to find Matt reclining on his cot, reading an old issue of _Breeder's Monthly_.

"Relax," he said, without looking up. "He's not back yet."

"…Oh." Moriko glanced around, reddening as she noticed many of the eyes in the room were on her. _Well_, said a voice in the back of her head, _opening a door so fast that it smashes against the row of lockers beside it tends to attract attention, you know._

She moved at a more sedate pace over to her cot and flopped down, the springs groaning. With a sigh, she pulled off her boots, letting them fall to the stone floor, followed by her socks. Taking a magazine off the small pile next to Matt's knee, she began to flip through a year-old copy of _Widgets and Doodads_, but disgustedly switched it for another after realizing it was mostly about things that she'd never be able to afford.

"So, what'd you have for dinner?" said Matt eventually, looking up from his magazine.

"Hmm? Oh, I bought some peaches and some sort of soup."

"What was in it?"

"Everything, the man said."

Matt smirked a bit. "Nothing like infinity for supper."

"Indeed. What did you have?"

"Some sort of meat onna stick. Mutton, I think."

Russell arrived then, twenty minutes late and carrying a paper bag of something. He stopped at his locker to retrieve the egg before joining them.

"'Bout time," said Moriko. "What were you up to? Maybe—"

"No, probably not," he said quickly, sitting down on his cot. "I decided to be tardy to save myself some anxiety, given that you were definitely going to be late. Cherry?" he added, proffering the paper bag.

"I see. And thank you," she added, taking one of the nearly black fruits.

"So, now that we're all here, did anyone accomplish anything other than dinner?" asked Matt, setting the magazine down.

"I did, actually," said Moriko.

Russell nodded as he rotated, raised and lowered the dull gray egg, which was about the size of a small watermelon. Moving the egg as Russell did was supposed to simulate the walking motion, and therefore make it hatch faster.

"I found a place that sells TMs and battle items. Expensive, but maybe worth a look."

"I went to the free battle center," she said. "Apparently, we can train there for five hundred a day per pokémon. It looked pretty good… they had all these different types of training machines and rooms and things."

"Five hundred for an entire day isn't bad," said Matt authoritatively, "but I bet we could get similar results by making them run laps and lift rocks and things."

"Yeah, I know—"

"Just saying."

"—but the problem there is that we're currently in the middle of a swamp."

"Obviously. But Porphyry's a port town. We could go down to, say, the beach, unless that overtaxes your imagination."

"Fine, your highness, I concede to your ineffable wisdom," she spat, rolling her eyes, "but at least come and see it before you make your ultimate judgment."

"Uh, so…" Russell began, uncomfortably looking back and forth between the two of them, "what did you find, Matt, since you asked?"

"I heard there was someone here, a researcher, but it turns out he's gone looking for fossils in the desert… but I did find someone else. Professor Alder, as it happens."

"You're kidding," said Russell. "What's he doing here?"

"Research on something or other… we can ask him when we see him, he wants to take a look at your celestiule egg."

The odd egg had perplexed Professor Willow; her internet connection unresponsive, she'd tried to search for information in her many copies of reports and textbooks, but had found nothing.

"Oh good," said Russell cheerfully. "It's certainly taking a long time to—"

The egg wriggled suddenly, giving a spasmodic twitch to one side; Russell was holding it in one hand, so he nearly lost hold of it, but recovered with a squeak of surprise.

"What the—?" said Russell as it jerked again, cracks beginning to spread all along its length.

"Put it on the floor," said Matt, "unless you want an audience."

Luckily, the other trainers were too wrapped up in their own personal worlds at that moment to pay Russell and the egg any attention. The egg twitched and spasmed violently; light began to be emitted from between the fissures in the shell. Abruptly the shell crumbled onto the floor, dissolving into powder and leaving behind an oblate sphere of light.

It swelled as they watched—and by now they _had_ attracted attention—before shrinking to coalesce into the shape of a young, mule-like foal.

The celestiule looked around, studying her surroundings from where she lay on the stone floor. Her gaze slowly came around to meet Russell's, and she stared at him for what felt like an age to him.

And then she spoke, quite clearly.

"How dull."

x.x.x.x.x

Pokémon hatched from eggs know things they are not supposed to.

Obviously, many pokémon naturally hatched from eggs… but the ones that hatched from the single eggs, which often started out looking the same as normal ones, but quickly grew in size once they had been laid…

A newborn pokémon should be a blank slate, save for instinct, and certainly not able to participate in battles. True newborns were assigned a level of zero; the ones that hatched from the strange eggs were, invariably, born at level five, ready to fight.

How this could occur bothered and preoccupied pokémon professors the world over.

But not as much as the why.

x.x.x.x.x

Whee! Finally, a chapter… about time, right? Sorry, school and all that. Anyway… kinda hard to do this chapter, since nothing was really happening… 'twas a bit short as well. Oh well… hopefully I can get to the gym battle soon. Also, this is my first chapter converted to HTML on my new computer… some things didn't happen automatically, it was annoying. Hopefully there aren't any formatting problems…

Thank you very much for your kind words, everyone! Hopefully I'll continue to live up to your expectations…


	17. Chapter 16: More Questions

Chapter 16: More Questions

"Did you know we've been away from home for a little over a month?"

Moriko looked up, a bit surprised. Matt tended to be silent if for some reason Russell wasn't around; she could never tell if it was from a negative emotion or simply from a lack of things to say.

"…No, I didn't… I haven't really been keeping track of the days."

"Heh… I'm strange that way… I always know what day it is, what time… sometimes down to the minute. It's been thirty-two days and… about eleven hours."

She nodded, only half paying attention; he was obviously in a funny mood, nothing really important coming out of his mouth.

Professor Alder's laboratory had the same, strange stone architecture as the pokémon center. They were actually sitting in his kitchen, its bareness augmenting the feeling that the furniture and the cupboards were merely accessories to the stone walls.

"How long has it been since Russell left?"

"Fifteen, twenty minutes."

There was a silence between them, while an old clock in some other room ticked away, and a vague haze of sound from outside drifted in the window.

"You know… one reason why the trainer-license-at-ten policy is favored is because most kids take their year off right away, get sick of it and come home. And even if they do enjoy the life, they can only go out during the summer after that… and most of them don't end up being career trainers anyway…"

"Oh really?" Moriko replied, not really listening.

"What I mean to say is they learn to be responsible out in the world… but when you keep them at home until they're fourteen, fifteen, sixteen… they don't grow up. And what you've done is basically handed them a world with no rules and no parental supervision. Licensed promiscuity, is what I'm getting at."

Moriko raised an eyebrow. "_Really_."

"It happens a lot, teenagers going out training and having a little romp in the bushes now and then," he said, smirking a bit. Moriko shook her head and gave a slightly disgusted laugh.

"How long have you known Russell?"

She blinked at the change in topic, but went on regardless. "The first time I saw him was when we got our starters. I didn't talk to him or anything, but I remember seeing him," she said, twisting a strand of hair with a finger.

"Okay. When did you first talk to him?"

"We both went to this summer camp a few years ago… the summer before high school. Rufus hadn't evolved yet, anyway. It was pretty new… in the foothills somewhere, I remember we had to take a bus… It was for aspiring trainers… there were kids from Hoenn and Johto there too, I think. Probably government subsidized, because I don't think it was very expensive… uh, anyway, we had this scavenger hunt activity and I got paired up with him."

"Did you win or whatever?"

Moriko grinned ruefully. "No, Angela and David won… the two blondes, if you remember from back in Littoral. We were dead last. I kept getting the directions mixed up, I used to be such an idiot with a compass… he knew what he was doing, but I kept bullying him into doing what I thought was right…" She stopped, staring into space. "I try to let him lead when he knows what to do, now… but I think I still bully him."

"I think you'd push anyone around, given the chance," observed Matthew.

"How amazingly perceptive of you," she replied dully, looking up at the ceiling.

"How'd you get that scar on your hand?"

Reflexively, she turned her palm over to look at the jagged line that sliced diagonally across it. "It's Interrogate Moriko Day today, isn't it?" she muttered.

"Russell has a similar one, as I'm sure you've noticed," he continued, either not hearing or simply ignoring what she said.

"Yeah… that's quite a funny story, actually…"

Further conversation was interrupted by the sound of a door opening, and Russell and Professor Alder appearing in the kitchen.

"…So like I said, don't worry about it. She's unusual, even for an egg pokémon, but I doubt there's anything to worry about. And you can start training her for battle as soon as you like."

"Thanks, Professor."

Professor Albrecht Alder smiled, clapping Russell on the shoulder—which was amusing due to their height difference of nearly half a foot—before turning his attention to the other two trainers.

"Well, I've answered this young man's concern… what can I do for you two?" he asked with another smile, his deep-set eyes disappearing into a mass of lines. He wasn't that old, probably barely fifty, but he had enough laughter lines for two people.

Matthew sat up and leaned forward, his arms still crossed on the table.

"What can you tell me about demon pokémon?"

Professor Alder whistled. "Not an easy topic, no indeed. Best to discuss this one sitting down." He selected the mismatched chair nearest the window and sat down, adjusting his obligatory lab coat, while beckoning to Russell to sit as well.

"Now let me see," said the professor, taking out a pipe. "Do you mind if I smoke? It'll go right out the window. Alright then…" He lit it and puffed a few times, before settling more comfortably. "Why don't you start by telling me what you already know?"

"Just that they can't be controlled by a normal trainer," said Matt.

"Yeah, that's all we learned at school," agreed Russell.

"I saw the statue over at the Pit," said Moriko. "So there're at least three, but along with what they said"—she jerked her head in the general direction of the other two—"that's the extent of my knowledge."

Professor Alder nodded. "I take it you three don't know much Gaiienese mythology, then? Well… let's see how much I can remember.

"In the Gaiienese pantheon there are two supreme gods, four principal gods, three demigods and the demon pokémon. Legend disagrees on whether the gods and demigods were also pokémon, and as to the total number of demon pokémon, which is anywhere from three to ten species. One of them is even rumored to be a 'fallen' god.

"According to legend, the two supreme gods, the god of day and the goddess of night, created the world… or Gaiien only, or its pokémon only. But whatever happened at the very beginning, legend consistently holds that things were well for a time. Then the supposed fallen god rebelled, or was created afterward as a test by the supreme gods for their children, or came in from somewhere… outside. Whether this means outside of Gaiien, or outside of _creation_ is uncertain.

"He needed allies, but unable to create them out of nothing, as the highest gods could, he instead took existing pokémon and corrupted them, often changing their elemental affinities and body structure until only the vaguest resemblance to their original form remained. Thus the demon pokémon were born.

"There was a war then, predictably. It is believed that the demigods were created by the principal gods at about this time, similarly mutated out of existing pokémon, as the demons were, but obviously not twisted and horrible."

He paused before continuing. "It is agreed that the principal gods and their allies emerged the victors… but as to what happened to the demon pokémon, no one can say. They may be dead… or they may simply be dormant. No one knows, aside from the fact that there are clearly none around today… even legendary pokémon can be controlled, although that is a very rare trainer, indeed, who can achieve that. As you probably know… it comes at a very high price."

Moriko shivered slightly in the ensuing silence, despite the fact that it was still very warm. Trainers died searching for legendaries. The few who came back, their prize—often a bloodstained ultra or master ball—in hand or not, were never the same.

Professor Alder seemed to shake himself, the darker mood that seemed to have taken him falling away. "Why did you want to know, anyway? Demon pokémon are quite an obscure branch of pokémon theory." He wrinkled his brow. "You say you learned about them at school?"

"Our pokémon theory teacher was Professor Hawthorn," Russell explained. "He gave us a class on some miscellaneous things that weren't on our test, demon pokémon being one of them."

"Oh, old Thorn-in-my-side?" said the professor with a chuckle. "Well, that explains it. He spent most of his career researching demon pokémon… not the entire time, of course, it was more of a side project… but he spent a lot of time crawling around old ruins and compiling all the legends and their variations. A lot of what I just told you I know from reading his work."

"I had heard of a man who caught a demon pokémon," said Matt quietly.

"Anything's possible," said Professor Alder, nodding gravely. Moriko was surprised; she'd expected a stuffy denial, like "preposterous!" or "impossible!"

"Well," Alder continued, "if I've given you enough to chew on for a while, do you have a question, miss?" he asked, turning towards her.

Moriko bit her lip pensively; she had been about to ask about demon pokémon as well. She was about to indicate the negative when she recalled something that she'd been wondering about for as long as she could remember.

"Why do pokémon professors all have types of trees for a last name?"

Professor Alder smiled, chuckling around his pipe. "It's rock-hard tradition, but did you know that it started out as a joke? No, probably not… In any case, perhaps you've heard of the Pokémon Research Institute? All pokémon professors obtain their degrees there. It's essentially in the middle of the Wild, north of Kanto… Anyway, when you graduate as a full-fledged professor, ready to go out and spend league and government money, you are awarded a tree or tree-related name that you may change your last name to. I say 'may', but it's almost a requirement; it's very rare that someone would refuse to change their name. There's no real purpose to it, like any tradition, but it does serve to differentiate us from regular teachers and researchers, since most people don't tend to have a tree for their last name."

He paused, taking another puff on the pipe. "Let's see… it's not like a regular last name, of course. If you get married, and your spouse wants to take on your family name, they have to take your original one… in most cases, anyway. If you're especially good—like, say, Samuel Oak was—you are allowed to replace your family name with it. And usually, if you're talented enough for that, they retire the name. Oak is retired of course, as are Elm and Birch; they aren't awarded to graduates anymore. Generally, as long as the bearer of the name is still alive and practicing, they won't award it to anyone else.

"And here's another piece of trivia—I don't know how many professors you're familiar with, but you may have noticed that some professors are named after an actual tree, while others just have a name ending in 'wood'. In general, graduates receive one of those names because they weren't the best academically. The 'pure' tree names tend to be more favored because they're more distinct-sounding… but you shouldn't make judgments about the professor just because of their name. For instance, Professor Wolfwood over in Johto is very intelligent, an amazing professor… despite his less-than-amazing marks at the institute."

He shifted his weight, glancing out the window to the street beyond. "Oh dear," he said, checking his watch for confirmation, "it's getting a little late… I'd invite you to set up camp here in the lab, but there honestly isn't any room, as you can probably tell."

"Hey, don't worry about it," said Russell, smiling, as the three of them accepted the hint and rose from their seats.

"You've been very informative," added Matthew.

"The thing with the tree names bothered me for ages, but I always forgot about it when I was around a professor," said Moriko, the four of them moving down a short hallway to the front door.

"It's because we all have a protective mental shield," Alder joked. "It keeps the truth hidden—but it seems I've let mine down today. Whoops."

They were out the door and in the middle of the professor's lawn when he seemed to remember something.

"I'm guessing you three are on the badge quest," he called from the front steps, "so if you're still interested in demon pokémon in a few weeks, you might want to ask Lord Ironhelm—he's the level five gym leader—to show you around the desert ruins. I understand it's quite informative."

"We will, thank you," said Russell politely.

"If we remember, of course," said Matt, grinning.

"I'm sure you will," Alder called. "Good luck with the gym in town—Belladonna can be very tricky, as I understand."

x.x.x.x.x

"Godsdammit…"

There was a group of trainers outside the pokémon center; with everyone coming in for the night, the inside had probably become quite crowded and stuffy. Among the group, laughing and chatting, were four trainers Moriko had hoped she wouldn't have to see again.

"Come on, let's see if we can get by without them noticing—"

"Hey! Moriko and Russell!"

"Too late," said Matt, dryly.

"Hey!" Angela called as she walked up to them, David trailing behind her. "Hi, you guys! When did you get into town?"

"Earlier this afternoon," said Russell amiably. "There almost wasn't enough space in the 'center for all three of us."

As Russell chatted, Moriko studied the two of them, and what she could see of Victoria and Mackenzie: they all seemed to be dressed in their more stylish urban-wear clothing—perhaps Victoria had some of Mackenzie's stuff stored on her digital storage device—and they lacked the slightly pinched look that most trainers tended to have. This was to be expected—with three storage devices in the group, they could carry almost any type of food with them and all sorts of gear.

She noticed, however, that David had a scabbed-over cut on the bridge of his nose, and a bandage wrapped around his hand.

"…David's cayvine evolved a couple of days ago," Angela was saying.

Russell nodded politely. "Oh really? That's great! Sylvia learned poison fang back in Verdure Town, so she'll probably evolve any day now. How are your other pokémon? Have you caught many?"

"Oh, a few," said Angela vaguely.

"So how'd you guys beat us here?" Russell asked.

"Well, since David and Victoria's cayvine both evolved, we just got them to fly us some of the way… borfang can bear quite heavy loads, you know."

"Wow, that must have been convenient… are you going to fly everywhere now?"

"No, probably not… we want to fight and catch wild pokémon, of course!"

"Of course."

"Hurt yourself, Dave?" Moriko asked, after a very slight pause.

David sneered a bit. "I fell, yes."

"Just a sprain," said Angela indulgently, hugging him. David smiled, a bit embarrassed, and put an arm around her automatically. Moriko rolled her eyes.

"Hey, Moriko… why don't we have a battle? No bet, it'll be just for fun," said Angela brightly, breaking away from David. "And how about… we use pokémon that the other hasn't seen yet. So I won't use Rio, and you can't use your starter or that raigar." She stopped and giggled. "That is, if you've caught any more pokémon than those two."

Moriko reddened. "I have… one more," she said through slightly gritted teeth.

"Oh good!" Angela said happily. She seemed to be one step away from clapping her hands with joy. "One-on-one then, it'll be quick."

Moriko felt a lurch of nervousness in the pit of her stomach as she walked out a few paces, putting enough space for a battle in between her and Angela. She really didn't know Liona's attacks that well—she'd reviewed the nigriff entry in her pokédex and got her to fight a few wild pokémon, but…

"Ready?" Angela called as Moriko turned to face her.

"Ready," she said, taking Liona's super ball from her belt.

"Go, Phoebus!"

"Go, Liona!"

There was a flash of orange-red light as Angela's flareon appeared, followed shortly by the blue glow from the nigriff's ball. Judging by the dark color of the capture ball that had returned to Angela's hand, the flareon was housed in a luxury ball—perhaps she'd planned for it to evolve into espeon or umbreon initially before changing her mind?

"Very pretty," Angela commented while half-listening to her gold pokédex. "It's like she's got rottweiler colors, but darker. Where'd you catch her?"

"Liona is… a bit of a stray. I think they usually live further north. Evolved your eevee pretty fast, I see." She glanced around. There were about ten or fifteen people watching; Russell and Matt were standing slightly behind her while Dave, and Mackenzie and Victoria, who had come up, were assembled in back of Angela.

"I decided I wanted a flareon, and they were selling evolution stones in town. Shall we begin?"

"Liona, use bulk up," said Moriko. She'd flouted etiquette by not replying and formally opening the match, but quite frankly, she didn't really care at this point.

"Use return," said Angela.

Liona glowed reddish-orange, her muscles bulging slightly as she temporarily increased her strength. She managed to brace herself just as the flareon smashed into her. It wasn't as devastating as it could have been—Angela had only had him for a week or two, not nearly enough time to give the return attack its full strength, but the luxury ball would have helped with that, and flareon were very physically strong.

Liona growled, regaining her footing, and managed to seize the retreating fire-type's tail with her beak. Phoebus gave a surprised bark as she jerked him back towards her; she rose onto her hind legs and managed to make him complete a full circle in the air—the people watching the battle gasping or laughing—before smashing him down onto the cobblestones. A second later, she'd been hit full in the face with a burst of embers.

She squawked angrily, ignoring Moriko's hasty directions ("Don' touch 'em, shake 'em off!") and trying to brush them away with a paw, before burning her pawpad and finally dislodging the bits of what resembled hot coals by shaking her head vigorously. Phoebus took the moment of inattention to hit her again with a quick attack.

"Use revenge!" said Moriko, a bit desperately, as Liona screeched with anger.

She couldn't be sure if Liona had actually listened to her or decided the action herself, but she did take on the dark brown glow. Charging, she rose onto her hind legs and struck Phoebus brutally with a paw, sending him flying.

"Phoebus, use wish!" Angela called, as the flareon struggled to his feet. His expression turned meditative, and his body was wringed by a few sparkles.

"Finish him off, quickly!" shouted Moriko. "Use wing attack!"

Liona spread her huge wings and shot into the air, making most of the people watching the battle move backward a pace or two, before swooping down on her opponent—

"Quick attack!"

—only to graze the pavement instead as he shot out of her reach.

Phoebus looked exhausted, but that soon changed as the air around him shimmered and scintillated; when it stopped, it was obvious that he'd recovered a substantial amount of energy.

Liona circled around and attempted to perform a wing attack again, but Phoebus used another quick attack to leap onto her back. She dropped to the ground, surprised by the extra weight, before screeching as the flareon clamped his jaws around the back of her neck. She flipped onto her back, intending to crush him with her body weight but he jumped free in time; she rose to her feet again and pounced on the smaller pokémon with a snarl of anger.

A few of the people watching the fight groaned as it dissolved into a growling, screeching, clawing mêlée, all pretense forgotten as the two proceeded to do their best to rip the other apart—

"Liona! We'll call it a tie! Stop it!" Moriko grabbed the super ball as blood and fur started to fly in the air. "Return!"

The nigriff's form turned blue and disappeared, sucked back into the capture ball, followed shortly by Phoebus.

"I won," said Angela, recovering most of her bearing; most people were always a little shaken when a battle turned ugly.

"It was a tie," snapped Moriko.

"You forfeited," Angela retorted.

"I—"

"It doesn't matter, it wasn't for money," Matt broke in. "It's getting late, why don't we go into the pokémon center? Yeah, that's right, it is a good idea," he said, half-leading, half-dragging Moriko.

"Uh… good night, you guys," said Russell awkwardly, before following them into the pokémon center.

x.x.x.x.x

"Where do you get off intervening like that all the time, anyway?" Moriko snarled, after she'd turned Liona's super ball over to the attendant.

"You might want to speak a little louder, hon, I think there're some people outside who didn't hear," Matt replied sarcastically.

"I wasn't speaking that loud!" she said, hissing angrily.

"Sure you weren't. Anyway, the motivation behind that particular intervention, as you called it, was the fact that I detest seeing women fighting each other. It degrades into hair-pulling and scratching too easily."

"I don't want or need your interference! Just sod off, will you!"

"No," Matt said matter-of-factly. "And if you really want me to, you're going to have to make me." He moved nimbly to dodge the booted kick aimed at one of his kneecaps. "Not bad, but you'll have to be quicker," he taunted.

"Moriko?" Russell began. His voice was a bit hesitant but his hand on her shoulder was quite firm; his reappearance distracted her enough to allow her to keep control.

"What?" she sighed, deflating and averting her gaze from Matt's slight smirk.

"It's been a long day. Why don't we all go to bed soon? The pokémon have all been fed… Let's get some rest, and in the morning we'll decide what we want to do for training, okay? Okay?" He gave her shoulder a slight shake.

"Fine," she muttered, grabbing Liona's capture ball off the counter where the attendant had left it, before stalking off towards the sleeping area.

"She really doesn't like me, does she?" Matthew commented cheerfully.

"Moriko is a little raw when it comes to her cousin, is all," said Russell in a tone of utter familiarity. "And she's probably embarrassed because the nigriff lost control like that… oh, and because you dragged her away. She's probably expecting that Angela will give her a hard time about that and imply a romantic interest and everything… The fact that, you know, things will be a little different since she's not actually living with Angela anymore escaping her completely, of course," he added, sighing.

Matt blinked. "Wow. You're either amazingly perspicacious or know her really, really well."

Russell shrugged. "We're pretty close, I guess… but all that seemed obvious to me, given what I know about her and given the situation."

"You sounded like a psychiatrist or something."

"I had to analyze a lot of books and characters in school. You get good at it."

"What's with the scar on her hand and yours?"

Russell blinked at the change in topic, before lifting his hand to look at the jagged scar slashing across it.

"Oh, this one… it's kind of silly. Moriko and I went to this summer camp a few years back… it was back before we went to school together. Anyway, this one day, we both hurt ourselves pretty badly a couple of hours apart. I was messing around with some other kids, and of course it got a little rough and somebody shoved me… I cut up my hands on some rocks, trying to break my fall… you can only really see the big scar now, the other cuts were mainly torn skin and little rocks imbedded in my palms and stuff."

"What about Moriko?"

"Um… I think she cut herself with a knife or something, I can't remember what she was doing… But we were both in the infirmary for a day or two, we both needed a number of stitches and almost needed to go back to Port Littoral… Once the painkillers kicked in for both of us, we ended up sitting around and playing cards for several hours…" He grinned and reddened a bit. "It was about thirty-five degrees out, grossly hot, no wind whatsoever, and our clothes had got a bunch of blood on them so we were sitting around in our boxers—Moriko had a tank top on or something, obviously—with ice packs everywhere, just sitting and playing hand after hand of Owl's Teeth… yeah, good times."

"Huh. And you've been good friends ever since?"

"Pretty much." He sighed. "It's probably safe to follow her now."

"Great… I feel like I'm dead on my feet," said Matt, suppressing a yawn.

"Are you worried about Belladonna?" Russell asked as they started to walk.

"The gym leader? Nah… why should I be?"

x.x.x.x.x

My dear readers… you've all been so patient, and then you get 4200 words of chatter. Oh, and a battle. Don't worry—the next chapter will be training montage time! YESSS

Senior year is drawing to a close for me… it's almost time to sell my soul to post secondary. It's a scary thought. o.o I got my wisdom teeth out, which was pretty icky but not very painful thanks to chemicals. I also got Leaf Green for being Such a Trooper! It's quite fun, my charizard has a maxed speed stat. I'm working towards a team of charizard, jolteon, alakazam, steelix, gengar and kingdra, which is the team I like to think of as being the team of an alternate-universe version of Russell. AU-Moriko's team is on my Fire Red and consists of venusaur, vaporeon, arcanine, aerodactyl, heracross and jynx, and AU-Matt's team only exists on a ROM currently and is a little more unorthodox: feraligatr, flareon, magneton, tyranitar, ursaring and exeggutor. But I'm rambling and nobody really cares! ONWARD, then!


	18. Chapter 17: Progeny

Chapter 17: Progeny

_"What don't foals need to know?"_

_The grimass jenny tore a length of muscle off the body before gulping it down barely chewed. She grinned—it always caused him a vague amount of annoyance to see pokémon make human gestures— _

_He stopped, considering what exactly she was communicating by baring slightly stained reptilian teeth, even if her mouth turned up at the corners._

_"Specifics will only disturb your mind. Is it not enough to know that there is something killing trainers, and that you must be wary?" Every syllable seemed to scratch over his skin like a dull needle; her voice was overlaid with a weird, semi-nasal hiss._

_One of the jacks absent-mindedly crushed the dead boy's humerus with a hoof. Matthew allowed himself to imagine the sensation and gave a small shudder before he regained control._

_"I am not a foal."_

_"You seem to carry yourself differently," conceded the grimass, twitching an ear with a vague sort of irritation._

_"It was a pilgrim," one of the male grimass broke in, his tone bored._

_"Don't be stupid," said the other. "That's just a story."_

_"Shut up," the female snapped, annoyed, but did not move her gaze from the human standing in front of her._

_"How do you know?" he asked the first male quietly._

_The jack flicked his gaze towards the jenny. The jenny snorted._

_"Because only the heart was taken," he said, dully, before going back to the carcass. _

_Matthew considered this. "Tell me about the pilgrims."_

_She fixed him with one blood-red, pupil-less eye, before grinning again. "I'm sure that can be better answered than by a few dumb _animals_."_

_"I know," Matthew said. "That's why I'm asking you."_

x.x.x.x.x

Matthew Sleet, recently of Port Littoral, stood on the roof of the Porphyry City pokémon center, sipping at a mug of weak tea and watching the sun rise.

Porphyry was… a little less than expected, he'd found, but that sort of letdown was not unpredicted, given an image built on gossip and rumor. It was probably one of the more real areas of Bridled Gaiien, but he wouldn't be happy until he was out in the Wild. They'd be back here soon enough, anyway…

The Pit had been fairly basic, he'd found. Repetitive exercises and periodic battling, nothing you couldn't do yourself, although the close proximity of a healing machine at any given time had been convenient. However, given the amount of training they'd done in three days, it was likely that they'd accelerated their pokémon's metabolisms beyond a rate that they could maintain… On the road, each of their pokémon would usually fight one or two others each day, and then recover most of their strength by resting overnight. Here, they'd crammed about two normal battling weeks into three days.

It was likely, then, that they might actually lose one or two of the levels they'd gained here in Porphyry while traveling to the next town, unless they could somehow increase their battle rate…

Which, Matt reflected, might become necessary in itself depending on how their battles today went.

x.x.x.x.x

Moriko sat on a bench outside the pokémon center, slowly chewing her way through a bag of muffins and stopping only to take a periodic gulp from a carton of milk. She was doing her best to focus on the food and not on the vague sense of worry that seemed to suffuse her entire being.

She was, she told herself, being absolutely silly; what had happened at the last gym had been a complete fluke, and the result of extreme negligence on the part of the leader. It was unlikely to happen again—and besides, there were only so many terrifyingly machinelike pokémon in the world, none of which, at least, were poison-type as far as she could remember.

Besides, with a name like 'Belladonna', it was probable that she would simply throw a number of flowery grass- and poison-types at her opponents, which would work well as far as Moriko was concerned.

So really, there was nothing to worry about. Not a bit.

x.x.x.x.x

Russell had allowed himself to sleep in a couple of hours before crawling out of his bumpy cot and wandering off to find food. It was odd, considering that today was arguably more important than the last three, but he felt that sleep was what he needed; it would help dispel a small amount of the bone-weariness he'd been feeling for, oh, the last month or so, and best of all, he wasn't thinking while he was doing so.

The celestiule was… bothersome. He had a sense that she knew—his mind said 'everything', but he replaced that with 'a great deal'—but it had to be triggered in some way. She would ask him a question, and the answer would open up a myriad of other bits of knowledge to her…

She had only asked him about a few things, at first, and now it was less than occasional. She just seemed to… observe. Everything. And radiate a strange sense of knowing, as if there was a joke being played on everyone that only she knew about.

He had asked her about her first words after hatching, the first of many enigmatic phrases.

She had stared at him with her pupil-less lavender eyes, which always seemed to strike him as properly belonging to someone blind, before saying, "there was something better before."

x.x.x.x.x

The gym was located in the more upscale part of town, between a small hotel and a very posh restaurant and possessing a magnificent view of the coast. It was, however, rather different in construction than the more modern buildings surrounding it.

It resembled an ancient amphitheater or, perhaps more appropriately, a gladiator arena. Stone pillars supporting trellises choked with brightly colored flowering vines and other plant life ringed the area, extending downward a short way to shade some of the upper-level stone seats that circled around the arena itself. Ivy crawled over most of the seats on the north side, while wooden planters divided the circle into sixths.

The arena itself seemed to be floored with a pale dirt or sand and possessed a wide stone pillar at each end that seemed to function as trainer platforms. It was apparently in good repair; the trainer platforms were covered in ivy while the rest of the arena was quite free from plant life.

There were a few people chatting in the area shaded by the trellises while a team of workers seemed to be repairing a set of seats. Now and then a wingull would drift overhead, gliding aimlessly like a scrap of cloth on the breeze.

The three of them had studied the arena for a moment before it became apparent that they were not about to be met by an attendant or receptionist. Matt, patience dwindling, had stalked off along the perimeter of the amphitheater while Russell and Moriko trailed behind.

Flowers of every hue surrounded the stone path, as well as various ornamental trees and ferns, but a bush with purplish stems and ink-hued bell-shaped flowers seemed to be a favorite. Russell's mother had kept an impressive garden, back in Port Littoral, and he had developed an interest in plants at an early age. Although he was no longer enamored with them, he was still fairly knowledgeable, but there were quite a few plants here that he had never seen, even in a book.

They caught up to Matt as he accosted a young woman in work clothes and gardening gloves.

"…okay, then, may I speak to her?"

"Well, I don't know. Do you have an appointment?" the woman asked.

Moriko found herself smirking slightly. There was something about her tone that suggested that she was merely doing her best impression of an uncertain secretary. Matt had probably caught on to the joke as well, but it seemed to be making him annoyed; possibly that was why she was finding the production so amusing.

"_Ohh_," she said, "you three must be the _trainers_ that are here for a battle today. Okay! The gym leader is"—and here she changed her tone completely—"right in front of you. Are you Russell?"

"Matthew, actually," he responded crisply.

She shrugged, pushing a strand of wine-colored hair out of her eyes. "Lost that coin toss, I guess. Then, _you're_ Russell, and you're Moriko. Nice to meet you," she said, the greeting sounding automatic. She gestured at herself, saying, "Belladonna of Porphyry City."

"Nice to meet you," Matt murmured. "And what does your mother call you?"

The gym leader blinked, considering this, before saying, "Bryony. Bryony Curare."

Matt nodded. "I see," he said, simply.

As she studied the gym leader, Moriko noticed that her light green eyes had the same bright, nearly fluorescent quality as did Matt's, and her own. Although she had long since grown used to her own eyes, she found that seeing other people with that brightness made her spine prickle, as if she was meeting her gaze with that of a tiger's.

"So, where are you three from?" Belladonna asked as she collected some gardening tools into a basket.

"Port Littoral," said Moriko.

"Oh really? You grow up there?"

"Yeah," Moriko said, as Russell nodded. Matt didn't say anything.

"I was born in Russet Town, but I moved here when I was about eight. I like Porphyry a lot better though. More to do. I went back to visit my folks last year, it's kind of a stuffy place. Anyway, I'm going to go change out of these clothes and grab my pokémon, so why don't you three go sit in the shade? Oh yeah—two pokémon each sound alright?"

"That should work," said Moriko, as Russell agreed and Matt managed a nod.

"Great!" she said brightly. "See you in ten!"

As she disappeared around a bend in the path, the three of them walked back the way they had came and back to the front entrance of the arena. Carefully avoiding the slowly growing crowd of spectators, they sat down in a section of seats dappled by what sunlight found its way through the thick trellises.

"So," said Russell.

"Annoying, vaguely air-headed perhaps," said Matt, making a connoisseur-like judgment.

"Flower trainer?" Moriko speculated.

"Almost certainly," Matt agreed. "Bet she wanted to be a grass-type leader, but Thorn got the job, so they kept her on as poison 'cause it worked too." He stretched out with his arms behind his head. "She doesn't seem… serious enough to be a leader. They've got a look, usually, you know?"

"You've only met two," said Moriko, skeptically.

"No—I mean, I went to Johto to visit some relatives when I was younger and they took me to see some gym battles, and I got to see them up closer afterwards—they've just got this look, alright? Even Tierra sort of had it." He lay back again. "Wonder who she knows, or slept with."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, while more and more people trickled in to watch the battle. The buzz of sound coming from the crowd seemed to take on an edge as the referee appeared in the league black and purple.

"At this time, I ask the trainer Matthew Sleet to make his way to the trainer platform on my left," the referee said, the amphitheater-like qualities of the construction of the arena carrying her voice to even the furthest rows.

Matt stretched and sauntered over to his end of the arena; he had been impatient to battle earlier, but it seemed a contrary streak had taken hold of him.

The crowd roared as Matt straightened up on his trainer platform; Moriko thought she saw him do the tiniest of double-takes, but he seemed to know or have realized that the intensity of the response could only have been for one person.

Belladonna stepped out from one of the shaded, cave-like entrances to the arena that led into it from somewhere underneath the rows of seats and bounded onto her own trainer platform.

It was as if she had undergone a transformation, like the women in the old stories who could turn into deer or foxes. She moved with an almost bestial grace, ascending onto her platform with practiced ease. Her forearms supported the weight of a large number of eclectic bangles and bracelets; copper, silver, brass, wood, bone, coral, porcelain, semi-precious stones and glass were much in evidence, strung in beads along hemp or leather or shaped into bangles if the material could support it. The collection would have certainly taken several months of devoted trawling of junk shops and flea markets to amass. And given the number of hoops and studs her ears, left eyebrow, navel—and possibly other places—had suddenly sprouted, it was possible that Belladonna could have applied for a position as a steel-type gym leader, had her fancy taken her that way.

The look she was giving Matt was one of pure, predatory intent.

"Say," said Russell, "look at her skirt."

"What about it?" Moriko asked. It was silky-looking and an interesting shade of purple that complemented the black tank top, fishnet tights and heavy boots—almost, but not quite, the same as the league colors. Besides that, she didn't see anything particularly interesting about it.

"It's the royal purple—porphyry, as it was once called," said Russell, close to her ear so as to be heard over the crowd. "You could be put to death, in the old days, if you wore that and weren't royalty."

"Maybe she reckons she's a princess or something," Moriko mused, a bit scornfully. "You're sure it's the exact color?"

"Well, I just saw it in a book once, but I'm pretty sure. There's something, uh"—he made a vague gesture with his hands—"distinctive about it. Like… you just _know_. You know?"

"Uh-huh."

"Each trainer will use two pokémon," the referee was saying. "No items, no time limit. Switching is allowed. You may select your first pokémon when ready."

A pokéball and a super ball spun into the arena a moment later. Badbyax appeared on the arena floor in a flash of blue light; he studied his surroundings, head twisting in a way that only birds seem to manage, as his opponent materialized across the field from him.

The vileplume was enormous, each petal swollen and shiny in the sunlight while its tiny eyes glinted in the shade beneath. Gloom evolved too early were sometimes unable to support the ponderous weight of their petals as a vileplume, but this one didn't seem to suffer from that issue.

"Trainers ready?" the referee called from the sidelines.

Belladonna and Matthew both nodded, the gym leader's expression still suffused with a weird kind of hunger, while a characteristic smirk had found its way onto Matt's face. There was a sizzle and a smell of ozone as a force shield enclosed the arena; Moriko was confused for a moment before realizing that their previous battles hadn't had audiences to protect, and two trainers waiting for their turns weren't really worth the energy cost.

"Begin!"

"Have at it," said Matt, folding his arms and relaxing his stance. "Watch out for spores."

Badbyax clacked his heavy beak and ascended into the air, turning a few lazy loops before diving with a screech at the flower-like pokémon. The vileplume released a dense cloud of toxic spores that shimmered and glittered in the sun, followed by a stream of acid almost as an afterthought.

The ravener dodged the acid easily, swooping away from the vileplume. He flapped his wings powerfully, using a whirlwind attack to move the spores away from his target.

It did not have the desired effect. Instead of shifting the troublesome cloud, the gust of air simply spread it out more; the crowd tittered at this. Badbyax clacked his beak in annoyance, making a noise that sounded like a bone hitting a rock, then dodged the subsequent stream of acid that came his way.

"Looks like you're going to have to get your feet dirty," said Matt, who sounded almost amused at the inability of the two pokémon to successfully attack the other.

The ravener squawked something unintelligible, which was probably for the best, before arcing upward and streaking down again in a dive bomb attack.

There was a smack and an oddly musical cry as he struck and was quickly away again, flying smoothly—hopefully he hadn't been poisoned or paralyzed. The vileplume, meanwhile, looked a little less serene with one petal crushed and a number of scratches oozing dark ichor as the crowd roared their disapproval.

Badbyax arced around and positioned himself for a wing attack as the vileplume glowed and seemed to hum to itself. He struck the vileplume's body—or stem, perhaps—this time, leaving behind another series of scratches and a bruise-like discoloration, but the earlier wound to its petal had been healed.

"Musta been a synthesis technique," Moriko muttered to herself.

Dodging another shot of acid, Badbyax struck the vileplume again, this time making it lose its balance and topple over. Although the flower-like pokémon was strong enough to be able to right itself easily, ponderous adornment notwithstanding, the instant of vulnerability was all Badbyax needed to launch into a scratching, pecking frenzy.

Belladonna had quick reflexes, that much was certain; the vileplume was back in its pokéball certainly not more than a second—or at least it seemed—after Badbyax had gained the clear upper hand. Recalls were permitted, however, so Matt could still have to worry about the vileplume.

Belladonna was still smiling a bit too predatorially for anyone involved to be completely comfortable, though.

"Not bad," she said, her first words the entire match. "Try this."

x.x.x.x.x

Deep in the bowels of the Porphyry City Center for Free Battles, electric lights flickered into life, illuminating the damp concrete corridors. Far above, three trainers exited the building through the front door and walked out into a starlit night. They were heading toward the pokémon center, a desire for sleep apparent in each; the three would face tomorrow, in their turn, a gym leader, and needed what rest they could take.

Although Porphyry still hummed—even at this late hour—with all the dealings of life, very little of it reached the lowest level of the Pit. There was a slight staleness to the air, as there was not often cause to venture down this far. Water dripped somewhere in the stillness.

The silence was broken suddenly, not in the gradual way that would have suggested someone making their way down from one of the upper levels.

"—he must have taken it all with him. But why so suddenly?"

There was a flash of blue light, and a noise that sounded like a very quiet, short inrush of air.

"Hmm. Maybe Ironhelm sent him an interesting message? Could have found something Hawthorn missed."

"Easily. I suspect that there is much that Hawthorn did not, in fact, discover, and that the lore is only part of it."

"You're sure you looked at everything? Ghosts see in a slightly different range of light, maybe—"

"No, I'm certain. It was all drivel. Migration patterns, ability data… the utterly _boring_ sort of projects they give mediocre researchers. His e-mail was all routine messages."

"No hiding places, cubbyholes… recently disturbed patches of earth?"

"I found a collection of lewd entertainment, but it was extremely dusty and out of date, so I surmised it belonged to a previous occupant."

"Anything I might have liked?"

"I remember you telling me that you are unable to find anything that does not seem 'tame' to you on the _internet_. I am afraid you have nothing left, save your own imagination, which I am afraid may be woefully inadequate."

The two men halted in front of the door at the end of the corridor. They were fairly similar, both entirely in black clothing, heavy black boots. Almost of a height, in fact—the hooded man was slightly taller than the other, who was slightly more muscular. It was peculiar that the only sound they made as they walked along, given the heavy boots they were both wearing, was that of their voices.

"Eris," the hooded man said. There was a silence, before a pair of ink-black, red-pupilled eyes appeared and opened on his lower torso. A disembodied purplish-black hand extended itself from his body and drifted over towards the door, before disappearing through the mass of it. A moment later, the lock clicked and the eyes shut and vanished, leaving only the black fabric behind.

The hooded man did not make any noise or move during the entire sequence, although one might have fancied that the visible areas of his face paled slightly. He exhaled, as if he had been holding a breath, and pushed the door open.

There was a wide space beyond, its limits lost in dimness. The way the two men moved, one might have fancied that they could see in the dark. They walked side by side until their paths abruptly diverged—the hooded man walked into the empty space in the center of the room, while the other kept closer to the wall.

He stopped, waited, was rewarded by the lights at the end of the room flicking on and illuminating a network of holes, all about four inches across, in the wall opposite him, to the left of where he'd entered. He removed his hooded cloak, tossing it to the side where it would not be a hindrance.

His hair was long and matted into something like dreadlocks; it had been a reddish-purple once, had unevenly grown out iron gray, which was odd—his face was not that old. His body was lean and slightly stretched-looking, as if he had grown too much, too fast. He had the pinched look of someone who had been small and skinny their whole life before suddenly—as if coming into an inheritance—finding that time had passed and with it came height and new possibilities, not yet completely grown into.

He rubbed his hands together, the skin of which was pale and the nails short and bluish, as a mechanical humming came from somewhere inside the wall. He stood perfectly still as the first few objects shot past him, then deflected the last. Those he had not left deep holes in the thick synthetic foam that covered the walls.

More of the objects shot at him, and more and more; soon the walls were peppered with holes and the ground was littered with those that had been harmlessly pushed away from their target. They increased in speed and frequency until—

A short cry, a gasp, almost inaudible over the crunch of metal on bone.

The other man stalked out from the other room, hidden in an alcove. Crouched beside the first, where he was doubled up on his knees.

"Hey, not bad," he said, his autumn-toned hair hanging in his face. He shook it back, took a bite of an apple. "You nearly made it to the end."

The first man managed to straighten slightly, both hands on his right side, blood leaking and shards of bone visible between his fingers.

"Let's get it fixed and come back tomorrow night," he suggested.

The first man breathed quickly and shallowly, like a cornered animal. "No. We… have to leave tomorrow," he managed to say.

"Yeah?"

"I have… to do the whole thing."

"You couldn't do it when you could move and breathe easy. What makes you think you can do it now?"

"I am stronger than the current," the first man said, although it was hard to tell if it was a reply or a litany.

He moved one hand to push against the ground, help himself rise. Straightened, agonizingly slowly, let his other hand drop away from his injured side. A drop of blood slid off his fingers onto the floor. He exhaled.

Slit-pupilled amethyst eyes glowed in the dimness.

"Again," he said, and his voice was different.

x.x.x.x.x

Hey, remember me? The loser who left everyone hanging? Yeah. Sorry about that. Got addicted to World of Warcraft, got a job, started university… but I cut off my WoW access, so I have a little more energy to write now. Hopefully I'll be able to finish a few more chapters before I let myself WoW again. Hopefully my readers aren't all dead. (looks about)

So yeah, hopefully this chapter is not completely on crack, as I have been writing it, off and on, for about… mm, let's see, when did I last update… probably for the last six months. Yup. I've read through it a large number of times, but my five science subjects like to steal my ability to think completely logically, not that I can easily do that in the first place. Hmm. Oh yes, and if it seems there was some character deviation in the last scene from what you remember, it's because I've been thinking, the last six months, even if I haven't been writing, and I'm going to go back and change it so it makes sense! ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTH(is shot)

Now remember to review if you want imaginary candy! You can't eat it, but you CAN take the square root of its negative. Lollerskates, math joke(is shot)


	19. Chapter 18: Precipices

Chapter 18: Precipices

Linden sighed, staring out at the street. It was early enough that the lights were still on, their orange sodium glow shaped into a halo by the drizzle. As he listened to the rain patter against the window glass and gurgle in the drainpipes, he felt like he should be filled with a new appreciation for the sound.

He was going somewhere very dry, after all.

The light from inside the garage spilled out onto the driveway; they were loading up the trucks outside, strangely mechanical in brightly-colored rain slickers. He gave a little shiver, before going back to sit on the edge of his bed.

His bags were packed; he'd gone through his drawers and shelves in the hope that seeing things would help him remember if he was forgetting them or not. No—he put a hand to his pocket, where Peggy and Abram's pokéballs were—he had everything.

Two thousand years ago, men had come to Gaiien's deserts, built a city of dark stone, and disappeared. No one knew who or why.

After twenty centuries, it had been uncovered, and the first person they called was his father. His own father, whose patient work investigating ruins in the three great regions had finally paid off.

Linden shared his father's passion for things ancient, even in the face of the severity of the weather they'd be facing. They were going to a desert. In summer. It was madness.

But every scorpion in his shoes, every sunburn, every inch of cracked skin, and every grain of sand that burnt its way through the delicate tissues of his respiratory tract would be worth it. He would be one of the first people to see rooms that had been perfectly preserved, entombed in sand for thousands of years. Maybe his father would get mentioned on the news. Maybe _he'd_ get mentioned on the news! Maybe they'd discover something fantastic that would turn the history of the world on its head and lead to the foundation of a universal brotherhood of men.

Hey, he could dream.

In all the regions, was there a better way to spend his summer?

Of course not. It was exponentially superior to his usual summer activities—that is, sitting at home and staying up until the wee hours of the morning playing games. Even the idyllic vacation scenarios, like going to that huge new amusement park in Johto or lazing around the pristine beaches of one of the archipelagoes, couldn't compare to this opportunity.

So… why was he so nervous?

He tried to reason it out. Probably it was because he didn't get out much, as a rule, and now he was not only getting out of the house but out of the region, and going from a class one economic area to a class three. It could get primitive, at times, he'd been assured.

That was probably it. Just anxiousness at the thought of leaving everything familiar behind and going to a new place. Besides, he was going to be with his father, ten students and whoever else was tagging along.

It was _fine._

Linden sighed to himself and dragged his suitcase out of the room, managing to get it and his backpack outside eventually. He put the suitcase in the back of the lead truck, an old, cheap hydrogen-cell model, and his backpack in the front seat. Most of the better-quality ground cars around nowadays had nuclear batteries powering their anti-grav boosters, while the hydrogen-cell kind with wheels were slowly becoming defunct. They were a pretty cheap alternative, but a lot of people swore by riding a bicycle or taking the subway—the commute to most of the urban centers in Kanto nowadays was absolutely brutal, and it was generally only possible to get somewhere in decent time if you were traveling very, very early in the morning.

His baggage in the car, Linden sat reading a paperback in the truck, occasionally looking in the side mirror to check on the progress of his father and four of the students who were helping him load up the gear.

It took another ten minutes for them to finish, plus another five as his father went through the house _again_, making sure all electrical devices had been turned off or unplugged, that there wasn't any food left in the fridge or a window left unlocked, and was probably contemplating calling the _Post_ again to make sure the paper had really been cancelled when the students honked the three trucks' horns simultaneously.

"Professor!" Andrea shouted, her hands cupped around her mouth, "hurry the hell up!"

Linden looked out into the gloom, half-expecting some irate neighbor with a firearm to storm out of their house, but it appeared the blast of noise hadn't disturbed anyone enough that they'd comment on it. He grinned a little as his father made a huge show of locking the front door, taking an age to find the right key; he finally finished as the students started to pointedly sing the theme from _Hubert, the Jolly Squirtle_.

The sun was just beginning to rise—that is, the dull gray of early morning had lightened somewhat—as they pulled out onto the freeway, heading for the Vermillion dockside.

He smiled to himself, still a little anxious but glad that they were finally on their way.

Linden didn't know it at that moment, but he—short for fifteen, a bit overweight, with washed-out blond hair and dull, bluish eyes—was, in fact, one of the most dangerous people in the entire world.

x.x.x.x.x

The creature roared, high and with a weird, hissing edge to it. Matt smirked a little as he imagined that it was himself on the floor of the arena facing the monster, armored and holding a sword, like the gladiators of old were said to have done.

Mantigore, eh? This would be interesting.

"All yours, Badbyax," was all he said.

x.x.x.x.x

It was, in the end, sickeningly short.

Belladonna's pokémon had slapped Matt's ravener out of the air, and would have proceeded to rend him apart had Matt not recalled him in a movement that had been hard to see.

She had grinned, the entire time, and was still doing so now, even as Matt tried his very best to make her spontaneously combust by the force of his stare alone.

"_Mantigore_," Russell's pokédex had said, "_the wrath pokémon. It lives deep in the desert, and is said to be able to live for weeks without water. Its poison can cause weakness, paralysis, blindness and death depending on the dosage. Dark and poison-type. It evolves from scorplion at level forty._"

The monster was a desert lion in form, for the most part—thin, sandy fur on a thin frame, every muscle clearly visible. Jarringly, forcefully wrong, even more so than the dark maroon bat's wings extending from its shoulders, was the segmented scorpion's tail, black and purple with a hooked, barbed tip.

The mantigore was pacing restlessly, glaring at Matt as if he'd robbed him of a treat.

"Wow," Moriko said to herself, for the third or fourth time. "I am really, really glad I don't have to fight that."

"Mm-hmm," said Russell for the third or fourth time, as he explored the creature's statistical information on his pokédex. "Ooh, this thing is _nasty_. Its stats aren't _that_ amazing, but it's fast, and it has some pretty good attacks."

"He's been standing there for like a minute. That's about two weeks in match time. What's he doing?" Moriko asked impatiently.

x.x.x.x.x

Matt stared at the woman across from him, who was, almost certainly, completely freaking insane.

You could see it in her eyes—and say what you like, you didn't find that many women training monsters like this.

Not many men either, if it came to that.

You'd see it occasionally—normal on the outside, but as soon as they got into the ring… instant psychosis. They started to think they _were_ the battle persona.

Really… the posturing, the costumes—they were just a game. Color, leather, spikes, earrings—hell, _war paint_ had been in vogue a few years back—it was just about presentation. Tomcats squaring off, puffing out their fur to make themselves look bigger.

Warriors and their battle standards, halting, loosening swords in scabbards, stating one's pedigree…

It was just ritual. It didn't _mean_ anything. It was just something to do, something that'd always been done.

So you'd _know_. Who killed, who was killed. One lives, one dies.

One day, he wouldn't need to state his pedigree.

Who did she think she was, wearing the royal purple?

x.x.x.x.x

Matt blinked, seeming to awake from a dream, as he selected a pokéball from his belt.

"Maia," he said, as if thinking aloud, and the ball arced out onto the sand.

The tibyss accentuated the mantigore's severity of form: every line of her seemed smoothed, delicate, her body a gentle curve. She was like water, seemed to flow along the ground instead of walking.

The mantigore's presence was harsh, grating; it seemed to be all points and right angles, a jagged scar on the sand.

He snarled, fur bristling, wings unfurling slightly, the scorpion's tail rising to quiver in the air. Maia arched her neck, regarded him coolly, disdainfully.

"Trainers may begin when ready," said the referee.

"Iratus," said Belladonna, "four points."

Iratus sprang into the air and arced around the arena in a turn to build up momentum, before hurling himself at the tibyss. Fangs, claws and tail glistened with venom as he dove, wings flapping to further overwhelm his opponent—

His opponent, who calmly smashed him away in mid-air with a blast of water that might have dented steel.

The mantigore righted himself, wings and paws flailing uselessly at the air for a moment before he was back on his feet. He roared again, in frustration rather than with a sense of bravado, the hissing edge to the tone more pronounced than before.

Maia inclined her head at that, but it was obvious she wasn't the least intimidated.

"Double team," Belladonna ordered. Moriko fancied she had looked very slightly concerned for an instant, when Iratus' attack had been nullified, but her expression now was just as manic as ever.

Iratus spat, annoyed, but after a moment there were three of him standing on the arena floor.

Moriko watched Matt frown in concentration, his eyes darting between the three clones. The mantigore had practiced this move, that was for sure—inexperienced users' clones sometimes wouldn't cast a shadow, or had fur that didn't move in the wind. Sometimes there was something a little funny with the eyes. She wondered if Matt could spot the difference—she sure couldn't, but Matt had a better vantage point, at least.

"Maia—"

"Crunch!"

Iratus leapt again, as did his clones; the tibyss attempted a large-volume ice attack, probably an icy wind or a powder snow, which passed through the clones harmlessly. Unluckily, the real mantigore was on the outside end of the sweep, and had time to get close enough to clamp down on the space where her neck met her shoulder.

"Maia!" Matt shouted, helplessly, as Iratus raked her with his claws, and swung his scorpion's tail at her throat.

She grunted as the sting sank into her paw instead; somehow she'd managed to raise it in time. She tried to twist away, buffeting him with her thick tail, but he merely snarled and tore at the delicate, bioluminescent orbs on her sides.

Maia growled, low and threatening—Moriko felt the hairs on her arms raise, thirty feet away; it had some harmonic that went straight to the hindbrain and made unsubtle suggestions about claws, teeth, and glowing eyes. The mantigore made a noise that sounded a little like a grating cackle, and redoubled his attack.

Two things happened at once.

There was an explosion of sand and gritty water as something—presumably a pipe—burst directly underneath Iratus, the force of the spray sending him spinning into the air, while Maia threw herself to the side, Iratus' claws tearing out.

Maia, bleeding and probably poisoned, wasted no time. She took a deep breath and exhaled an enormous cloud of vapor; within seconds the entire force shield-enclosed bubble of the arena was filled. The excited murmur of the crowd in the aftermath of Maia's breakout turned to disappointment as it became nearly impossible to see what was going on.

Moriko found herself hoping desperately that Belladonna had used her best pokémon on Matt. She didn't know if she could compete, if Belladonna used a pokémon as strong as Iratus against her. She wiggled one of her legs nervously as she tried to see through the thick mist; seconds went by, and yet it was eerily silent, the vapor somehow able to smother sound as well.

There was a screeching yowl that finally pierced the fog and was sudden enough to make more than one person start in their seats; fed up, the referee turned off the barrier for a moment, allowing the mist to diffuse into the surrounding air.

As it cleared, it revealed the trainers gazing down onto the arena, Matt with concern and Belladonna with fury, and then the pokémon.

Maia had dropped onto her haunches and was panting heavily as she bled freely from numerous wounds; she had accumulated a few more as well as a second sting puncture, the skin around it already discoloring.

Iratus could barely move; most of his body was encased in a shell of ice, except for his head, tail and wings, all of which were flailing as he struggled wildly.

Matt's characteristic smirk slowly found its way back onto his face. He looked up at Belladonna, who simply stared back, eyes blazing.

He shrugged. "Maia, finish him off," he said, simply. The tibyss closed her eyes.

It took a little over half a minute, though it felt like longer, for anyone to notice the water from the broken pipe inching uphill along the arena floor; much more interesting were the cracks slowly spreading in the mantigore's icy prison.

Water pooled on top of the sand beside her, slowly; the crowd was getting bored by this time and someone called out "do something already!" Moriko felt a prickle of annoyance, and would have certainly said something back or at least tried to track the offender down after if it'd been her in the trainer box, but Matt seemed to pay it no heed; he was gripping the trainer box railing as hard as ever as he stared furiously at Iratus. It was as if he was hoping that through sheer force of will, he could get entropy to work in reverse and keep the mantigore frozen.

The water gathered at an agonizing speed. The bottom seemed to drop out of Moriko's stomach as a loud crack indicated Iratus had freed one of his legs; Maia gave something like a heave and added the last of her own water to the liquid she'd gathered, as the mantigore furiously set about freeing the last of his limbs.

Moriko barely noticed the gasp from the crowd as, from beside the tibyss, a pillar of water reared upwards like a fist.

Iratus reared upwards, shedding ice as he roared and flapped his wings—drew low to the ground, preparing to pounce—leapt with a snarl—

The water slammed into him. He bounced twice before Belladonna's trainer platform finally arrested his motion.

The mantigore's body shook as he struggled to rise; Moriko felt a rush of anxiety at the thought that Maia's final strike had not been enough, that the monster would rise and end the battle… she still didn't care much for Matt, but it would break anyone's heart to see the effort Maia had shown be for nothing.

Moriko drew an almost panicked breath as she realized the mantigore was on its feet, standing steadily; it turned to face Maia—

And, with a noise that sounded like a sigh, dropped limply onto the ground, unconscious.

Moriko dimly heard the referee announce Matt's win, quickly swallowed by the roar of the crowd, some die-hard fans of the gym leader booing but most applauding a marvelous battle, regardless of the outcome.

Her focus was on Matt, who was on the arena floor before the referee had scarcely spoken. He nimbly dodged the crater in the sand, but slowed as he reached Maia.

Moriko had an odd feeling in her chest—she thought she could see a strange, pained expression on his face, though it was so fleeting that she decided she had probably imagined it.

He put a hand on the tibyss's head, carefully, and said something too quiet to hear.

"That was awesome," said Russell, as Matt approached, Maia back in her pokéball.

Matt nodded politely. "I try."

"The water manipulation was cool. Isn't it rare to see before level fifty?" asked Moriko, a little nervously—she was expecting a snippy answer, but it was hard not to be enthusiastic about this sort of thing.

"Controlled, yeah—Maia can do it if she sort of snaps, or if she has a lot of time to concentrate. Can't wait until she can do a surf attack, but that won't be for a little while."

"Isn't there a pokémon that can control the water in your body or something?" said Russell, looking as if he was trying to remember something.

Matt smirked slightly. "Oh, that. Nah, just a trainer legend. If that was true, then a water pokémon would be able to kill any pokémon outright by, say, making all their cells lyse simultaneously.

"Well, what's stopping them? What's special about the water in the body?" said Moriko.

"I'm… not totally sure, actually." Matt scratched at some of his stubble, apparently annoyed about revealing that he did not, in fact, know everything. "I read it, somewhere, but I can't remember now. Something to do with your cells, maybe."

"Next trainer!" bellowed the referee, surprising them a little.

Russell got up without a word, and made his way down to the empty trainer platform.

Matt got up as well, a bit suddenly.

"What's with you?" asked Moriko.

"I'm going to go heal Maia. Poison?" he said, before trotting off. Moriko frowned at his receding back. He'd said the last word as if it was _she_ who'd forgotten. Well, she sort of had, but Maia wasn't _her_ pokémon.

"Two pokémon per trainer, you know the drill," said the referee, who seemed to be growing less enamored with her job every minute. "Begin when ready."

"Go, Conall!" said Russell, throwing the dirfox's pokéball into the arena. Conall had improved the most during their training period out of any of their pokémon, but he hadn't yet evolved despite exceeding the supposed level requirement.

Belladonna flicked a super ball onto the sand, her good mood apparently ruined.

As the gym leader's choice materialized on the field, Moriko scrambled back several rows before she realized what she was doing.

_Snakes._ _Why did it have to be a snake?_

Conall looked tiny and drab compared to the pokémon Belladonna had chosen. The enormous, bruise-purple cobra loomed over him, garish red and yellow patterns on her hood identifying her as an arbok. Conall seemed to shiver as she studied him with lidless eyes, forked tongue flitting in and out as she tasted the air.

His nervousness seemed to overcome him, and there was a card-shuffling effect as he created two copies of himself in a double team without direction from Russell.

The arbok reacted immediately, subjecting one of the copies to a piercing stare that made Moriko's insides knot—and she was even off to the side of it.

"Confuse ray!" said Russell. It seemed the arbok had picked the right copy, though, as Conall simply continued to shiver, all three of the images locked in the same half-crouch.

The arbok's mouth opened grossly wide as she reared up further—then struck, in a motion almost too fast to perceive.

An instant later, she was shaking the dirt off her snout and hissing angrily, while Conall and his remaining clone slunk behind a couple of the drifts of sand that had formed during Matt's battle.

"Confusion!" said Russell as the arbok whirled around and tore after one of the clones; both jumped out to face the snake-like pokémon, although nothing seemed to happen besides them both shaking horribly.

Then the air in front of the arbok seemed to ripple and distort, and her head was knocked back, forcing her to come to a halt, as if something invisible had just delivered her a sharp blow.

She whipped her head back to face the copy she'd targeted, but instead of attacking, as she was well within striking distance, she seemed to look around as if she'd lost sight of him.

Conall, or the clone, slunk away as she slithered around distractedly; the closest she got to him was to nose the sand where he'd been standing, utterly perplexed.

Moriko was close to biting back a laugh when Belladonna, losing her composure entirely, started to snarl and scream at her pokémon.

"Veregreia, you _beast_! Are you stupid? Think, think, you idiot, _smell_ him, feel his tread in the ground! Have I taught you _nothing_? He's _there_, he's _right there_—"

And here it was cemented in Moriko's mind that the gym leader was quite insane, because she started to whistle piercingly, again and again, punctuated by little screams of rage. Moriko stared at her, appalled—she wondered if perhaps Belladonna was having some sort of fit or seizure in her apparent frustration.

Meanwhile, Conall's clone had dissipated and he seemed to be performing confusion attacks with more confidence, since Veregreia was just as bewildered as ever; once or twice she seemed to rise above the confusion and make a lunge at the dirfox, but she was still acting clumsily enough for him to avoid her attacks without too much difficulty.

Russell was delighted at the success so far of the strategy, egging Conall on with shouts of encouragement. He began to draw closer and closer to the snake pokémon, taunting her in his high, yipping voice as the air around her seemed to take on the likeness of a permanent heat haze. Belladonna's ranting took on a new intensity as the arbok was still unable to react to such an easy target. Coupled with the noise of the crowd, some members of which jeering what they perceived as cowardice on Russell and the dirfox's parts, the arena was filled with a terrific din. Moriko found herself relaxing as it seemed that the arbok would likely lose without putting a scratch on her opponent.

All of these distractions made it difficult to see what happened next.

It all occurred so fast, Moriko could barely remember later exactly what had happened, though Russell recalled it in excruciatingly vivid detail for a long time after, especially at two in the morning with a force that threw him instantly awake from even the deepest sleep.

In an instant, Veregreia shook off her confusion, going from completely bewildered to burning with a fury so palpable that Moriko's only really clear memory was of the pure, bestial rage pouring off of her.

She dove at Conall with a hiss that sounded like a scream, struck him once, twice, three times, almost too fast to see. The dirfox's body seemed even more appallingly tiny—like something starved, or a doll made of scraps of cloth—as her huge fangs stabbed into him.

On the fourth strike she tossed his body, expertly, into the air; to Russell, he seemed to hang there, suspended, the instant stretching into eternity—

—he fell again, helplessly accelerating towards the earth, but the snake was below him, her mouth open grotesquely wide—

He tumbled headfirst into her gullet, her jaws enfolding him in a sickening, poisonous embrace.

Veregreia had time to gulp once, the first step of the long process of swallowing large prey whole, before a number of horrified screams rose up from the crowd.

A second later, the nightmare had passed, the dirfox drawn back into the safety of his pokéball, the arbok hissing furiously at the loss of her prize.

x.x.x.x.x

Heh heh. Yeah, pretty slow, eh? Sorries. School, World of Warcraft, school, in that order. I try my best. n.n;; Sorry these battles are taking so long… if all goes to plan, they'll be done _next_ chapter and on the road again the chapter after that. So… yeah, that's in, what, six months? x) Hope not.

Anyway, it looks like FFnet's new policy is that I am definitely not allowed to reply to reviewers in the body of the story… and I'll have to move the old replies in case some 'tard reports me for them, despite them pre-dating the rule. However, since I'm allowed to make my own forums, I think I'll post the replies _there_. Would you guys like that? Does anyone ever read to find out the answers to other people's questions? Maybe I shouldn't bother in future, but I'll archive the old ones there, at least, so I don't lose them.

So yeah, a big thank you and pervy glomps and the baked goods of their choice to my many lovely reviewers. n.n Thank you all for greasing my ego enough to keep me writing more actively than I would be otherwise:3 Reviews and comments make me squee.


	20. Chapter 19: Spirit of Wrath

Chapter 19: Spirit of Wrath

Russell stood, panting, as if he'd just run a mile or dodged a bullet. Eventually he noticed that his arm was still outstretched, holding Conall's pokéball, and let it fall to his side.

The snake had almost eaten Conall.

The snake had almost _eaten_ Conall.

The _snake_ had almost _eaten_ Conall.

A disapproving murmur emanated steadily from the crowd, but Belladonna seemed to be paying it no attention, glowering at him from across the arena. He didn't like the weird, predatory look in her eyes, which was enhanced by their odd fluorescence.

Moriko's and Matt's were like that, too, he realized—slightly fluorescent. But Moriko's he was used to and Matt's had only bothered him at first, whereas…

Belladonna's eyes were like those of an animal.

She didn't seem too bothered that her arbok had tried to eat his pokémon, and the crowd was merely disapproving. Had this happened before?

Veregreia glared at him, to little effect. He flinched slightly as she spat a clot of acid onto the floor of the arena—for a split-second, he'd almost thought she was going to spit it at him.

"Time out?" he called to Belladonna.

x.x.x.x.x

Belladonna tossed her head, rolling her eyes as if annoyed by her opponent, but seemed to acquiesce. She glanced down at Veregreia as though she had just noticed the snake, and recalled her almost disgustedly before stepping off her platform.

The arbok recalled, Moriko was able to venture down toward the arena floor, where Russell was gesticulating at her to come over.

"Oh, your snake phobia," said Russell, as she came closer. "I forgot about that one."

"You forgot the time I screamed like a banshee and jumped onto your shoulders because of a skipping rope someone had left half out of a bush?" she asked, ruefully.

Russell grinned widely. "Not anymore. Oh my, oh my, the fun we shall have… I surmise you've been controlling the screaming as of late?"

"The one aspect in which fortune has smiled upon me," she said, rolling her eyes. "Did you see me scramble back about fifteen feet when it came out?"

"Missed that one."

"So anyway… what's up?"

"Oh, right… dammit, I wanted you to take Conall to the pokémon center, but now I've wasted time with my chitchat. Think you can make it?"

Moriko nodded. "Yeah, it's just down the street. Easily, unless you get in a one-hit K.O. or something."

"A nice thought, but one I'd be better off not even contemplating," he replied, mock-mournfully.

x.x.x.x.x

Moriko walked quickly to the pokémon center, not wanting to risk a headache by running in the heat, the dirfox's pokéball in her pocket. She didn't like missing out on the second half of Russell's battle, but it might quiet her nerves—she was getting more and more apprehensive about fighting Belladonna, after seeing what Iratus and Veregreia could do. Belladonna hadn't seemed to have curbed her pokémon in any way, letting some highly destructive instincts shine through.

How Conall had nearly been eaten… She shivered in the hot sun. It had happened so fast, she didn't remember it that well, but she'd seen the arbok gulp down on the fox's body well enough. She suspected that some of her old dreams, the kind that made her wake up gasping and in tears, might again make an appearance…

The pokémon center and meeting up with Matt there helped take her mind off what had happened; the story was too horrible not to tell, despite her enmity for the other trainer.

"Are you serious?" he asked when she'd finished, as they stood in line. "That's _sick_."

"Exactly. I mean I've heard about pokémon dying, that happens sometimes, but one trying to eat the other?"

"Well, if you have a predator fighting its natural prey I wouldn't deny that a certain thought might go through the predator's mind, but generally—I mean, she's a _gym leader_ for godssake—generally you train them a little better than that."

Finally reaching the front of the line, she put Conall's pokéball on the counter. "I'd think so, anyway. After your battle, and after what I saw of Russell's, I think she trains them to be vicious. Under the name of Russell Ignatius, please," she said to the attendant, who took the ball.

"It's not illegal to train your pokémon to be nasty, as long as you aren't abusing them," said Matt as they walked out from the pokémon center's cool shade into the heat again. "But that's usually a bad idea, 'cause they could turn on you if you go too far one day, not to mention there's usually an inquiry when pokémon are killed in battle, which is really not something you want to risk happening."

"I can't get over that mantigore thing. Where could she have got it?"

"Probably the Exare Desert to the southwest; scorplion are uncommon but not impossible to find. But they're little bastards to train, most people would write it off and go for something easier, like a gyarados."

"I'm really worried about fighting her," Moriko found herself confessing as they wove through the crowded street. "She's nuts."

"Yeah, probably," Matt agreed. "But yeah—just do your best. You and her have the same fighting style, the all-out offensive, so that's all you can do… unless you have a strategic brainwave. That happens sometimes, when you're under pressure."

Moriko nodded, not finding his words terribly heartening.

There was a roar from the crowd as they drew closer to the gym, and they ran the last few meters to see what they were missing. It was over by the time they reached the lip of the arena; Belladonna was recalling a purple-and-tan pokémon, thick-furred like a skunk or a wolverine, and Sylvia was doing a victory lap, much to the crowd's delight.

Moriko felt a little thrill as the borfang passed, supported by wide green dragon's wings; Sylvia had evolved while they were training, and seeing her in flight was pure joy. She suspected this was because of the dragon-wolf's own elation at finally being able to fly—she was the last of her fellows from Professor Willow's to evolve.

Moriko briefly wondered what Russell thought he was doing, sending Sylvia into a situation where she had a type disadvantage, but whatever had happened, it had obviously gone well for him.

With a sharply indrawn breath, she realized it was her turn.

"Go get 'em, kid," said Matt, with a half-smirk.

She tried to smile, but suspected it looked more like a pained grimace, as Matt's smirk grew deeper.

The walk to the trainer's box seemed to take an eternity; she smiled at Russell as he passed her, but it probably wasn't much better than the one she'd given Matt. As she ascended the rusted ladder to the top of the trainer's box, she became acutely aware of the crowd's eyes on her. The bottom of her stomach dropped out; one leg felt like it wanted to start shaking; she felt like she was in seventh grade again, trying to give a presentation to the class. Any second now she was going to start crying.

She put a hand out onto the railing to steady herself, felt its coating of rust crumble under her grip.

Supposing she lost?

_No,_ she told herself firmly, closing her eyes. Belladonna wasn't unbeatable, it had just happened twice today. Everything was perfectly okay. Tune the crowd out; they don't matter, they're just a bunch of repeated sprites…

She smiled to herself, remembering hours wasted at Russell's house on rainy days, playing a ROM of _Legendary III_ he'd spent two weeks trying to download on his crappy modem…

It was woefully unlike the real thing, she'd found.

"The challenger, Moriko Rot-wald"—Moriko winced at the mispronounciation—"from Port Littoral, will be facing Porphyry City's own gym leader, Belladonna Curare! This match will be two on two, no items, no time limit, switching allowed. Trainers may begin when ready."

Russell's match must have been exciting if it had put the referee back into a good mood. _Tough act to follow_, she thought to herself, selecting Rufus's pokéball.

Belladonna seemed to be more annoyed than ever as she hurled an ultra ball into the ring. It was almost odd that she was taking her losses this badly—a gym leader had to lose some of the time, otherwise trainers would go looking for easier pickings.

Rufus yawned and exhaled an umbrella of flame before setting about calmly stretching his muscles. The oxhaust's opponent was a bipedal dinosaur- or lizard-like pokémon, his coal-black hide mottled with patches of orange that shaded to yellow and then green along the length of his body. He was stocky, not as tall as Rufus but more heavily muscled, with a thick, short tail and sharp ridges along his spine.

"_Varanitor, the hunter pokémon,_" the pokédex's screen dutifully indicated. "_It is rarely found in the wild, the pre-evolved forms being more common, though restricted to a certain chain of islands in the south seas. It has excellent night vision and uses a combination of poison and direct damage to bring down large prey, and is not afraid to attack humans. Poison and fighting-type, evolves from komodra when traded._"

The pokédex also indicated that the first stage of its evolutionary line was a lizard which could glide on a web of skin extending from its ribs. It was always amazing that something so small could become such a monster…

She glanced at Rufus and saw a gangly, orange calf in her mind's eye.

Upon appearing on the field, the varanitor had done little more than crack his knuckles. He was crouched, waiting, heavy-clawed hands resting on his knees: perfectly still aside from a forked tongue that flicked out periodically to taste the air. She noticed he had strips of gauze or some other bandaging material wrapped around his knobbed knuckles; she wondered if they served some purpose or were merely an affectation.

The varanitor attacked suddenly and with surprising speed, charging and kicking up a cloud of sand at close range, before darting behind the oxhaust and aiming a kick bolstered by thick talons at his unprotected back—

Rufus spun and deflected the blow, exhaling a blast of flame as he did so; the varanitor wove out of reach, only lightly singed. He spat a clot of acid at Rufus, who grunted as it hit his forearm, then offered an ember attack in reply.

"Bulk up, Kireng," said Belladonna, as the two pokémon broke apart and circled one another.

"Try a… flame wheel," said Moriko. How was the damn thing so fast? She hoped that it wasn't just Rufus who was slow…

The bolt of fire hit the varanitor just as he started to glow an earthy red, though it didn't seem to faze him much; he darted forward, on the attack again. Rufus suffered a number of slashing blows to the chest before hitting the lizard pokémon full in the face with what might have been a flamethrower attack.

Kireng dropped to the ground and tried to slip out of range while crouched; Rufus caught him a glancing blow with one of his huge hooves that nevertheless knocked the varanitor back a few paces.

Rufus leapt forward this time, fists swinging as he tried to land a fire punch, but his attempts seemed syrup-slow in comparison to Kireng's easy dodges.

Moriko couldn't help cheering as the varanitor was floored by one lucky, devastating blow, but barely managed more than a useless, shouted warning as Kireng balanced on one hand, mid-fall, and delivered a vicious kick to the oxhaust's lower jaw.

Rufus staggered backwards, half-dazed with one hand pressed to his neck, the other stretched out in front of him as an instinctive attempt to ward off further blows. Kireng straightened his posture, seeming to scarcely notice the cracked, burnt scales on the left side of his chest; he ran forward a few paces before leaping into the air and diving into the sand as if it was water.

Moriko suspected that the coming dig attack was going to be a _good_ one.

"Rufus! He's using dig!" she called.

The oxhaust froze, mid-nervous scan of the arena surface, and Moriko smiled a little as flame began to surround his body. It was more unfair than she knew, but sometimes she needed to be reminded that Rufus wasn't _all _brawn.

Agonizing seconds passed, with no attack, and Moriko found herself wishing that the minotaur knew how to perform an earthquake technique—it would speed things up, certainly. The cords in Rufus's muscles stood out as he fought to keep the fire from dissipating or forming itself into an attack.

Kireng burst out of the ground in a fountain of sand, directly behind Rufus—and despite the flames, landed a couple of powerful blows to his lower back. The assault, however, caused Rufus to lose concentration, and Kireng was hit by a sheet of flame as, suddenly freed, it exploded off the oxhaust's body.

The varanitor was knocked back, and as Rufus spun to face him, the two were once again squared off; Moriko felt some satisfaction in that the varanitor's recovery seemed to lack some of the grace it previously possessed. The repeated fire attacks were getting the better of him, it seemed.

"Try another flame wheel," she said.

The oxhaust's flaming mane grew and encircled him, before coalescing in a sphere and shooting at his opponent.

It landed harmlessly on the sand where Kireng had been a moment before. The varanitor had shot forward once again; Rufus inhaled, preparing for another fire attack, and was hit square in the eyes with a clump of sand.

He loosed the half-formed blast of flame while simultaneously trying to clear his vision, but his opponent had already leapt into the air and onto his back.

Kireng left a field of deep scratches with his claws as he struggled to gain a hold against the oxhaust's ferocious bucking and twisting, before sinking his knifelike teeth into Rufus's neck.

Rufus bellowed in pain and frustration; abruptly he gained a hold on one of the varanitor's arms, which seemed to have the same effect as wrestling with a food processor, and proceeded to peel Kireng off his back before smashing him bodily onto the ground in a punishing seismic toss.

"Stomp," Moriko found herself saying as she looked at the battered lizard and her own shredded minotaur. Rufus raised an enormous hoof, but it came down on empty sand as Belladonna recalled the monster.

Intercepting a tiny nod from Belladonna, the referee stated, "one pokémon down on the gym leader's side."

Moriko found herself exhaling a breath it seemed she'd held for the entire first round. Kireng had possessed incredible stamina—even when she'd thought he was weakening, the monster still had room for a few more attacks. He was highly trained and disciplined—oddly unlike some of the gym leader's other choices.

She gave Rufus a thumb's up, and he grinned weakly before relaxing his posture, making it truly apparent how tired he was. The cuts Kireng's claws had left looked even worse, and they looked bad enough before; the bite on his neck was the worst, oozing and bluing from the poison.

"Do you want to keep going?"

The oxhaust shrugged noncommittally, but she'd already made the choice for him.

"Great job," she muttered to his pokéball before attaching it to her belt. He'd only been bitten once, so it could probably wait a few minutes before being treated for poison.

Who to select next? Most of Belladonna's pokémon so far had depended on close-range attacks, so it would make sense to use a pokémon that could attack from afar, which ruled Liona out—it would probably be a good idea to use the raigar, since he had poison resistance as well.

"Go, Tarahn!" she said, his pokéball arcing out into the arena.

It was a moment before Belladonna chose her pokémon; eventually a teal and black net ball hit the sand, emitting a burst of turquoise light.

"Scypha," she said, simply.

What emerged, Moriko had to stare at for a good few seconds before she even realized what it was.

The blue and metallic red cap of a tentacruel, six feet across like a gigantic, bloated mushroom, lay on the sand. It was bizarre; it had none of the species' characteristic tentacles to be seen, nor its blue, pincer-like appendages. Completely unmoving, it might have even been dead.

Tarahn's tail twitched; Moriko wondered if he was resisting the temptation to go up to and poke it.

She wondered what could possibly have been wrong with it. Most water pokémon that lacked the ability to move easily on land quickly developed the technique that allowed them to hover above the ground for a small expenditure of energy. That a pokémon at this level range would be unable to do so would be almost unheard of, not to mention there was the small problem of the thing being apparently embedded in the sand.

No trainer would send out a pokémon that couldn't fight back in _some_ way.

She glanced up at Belladonna, who appeared to be utterly unconcerned by her pokémon's strange behavior and appearance.

It looked like the joke was on Moriko, whatever it was.

"Use thunderbolt, Tarahn," she said.

"You got it," he replied, happy to finally be doing something. Energy crackled along his body, bright yellow and blue where it hit air molecules, before lancing towards the jellyfish pokémon.

It fizzled into nothingness as it contacted a faintly orange barrier that had formed around the apparently inactive pokémon.

"…Huh," was all Moriko found to say.

Okay. What had it just done? Protect? Or was it a light screen? Could it learn light screen? Her mind's verdict was a resounding 'no idea' as she struggled to remember data from Pokémon Theory and the trainer video games she'd played over the years. Well, what now? Looked like Tarahn would have to get close to the thing, she couldn't have him stand around and waste energy all day, despite her increasing concern that there was something _extremely_ weird about the tentacruel.

"Try a slash attack, but, mm… be careful," she said, finally.

Tarahn didn't charge, but skirted the cap, watching it carefully and looking very much like a spooked housecat. He approached it, stopping dead as someone in the crowd called out, "Watch out, scaredy-cat!"

The heckler's friends quickly shushed her, but there was still no response from the tentacruel. Twitching his tail irritably, he crouched and leapt at the thing.

Out of nowhere, dark tentacles appeared to swat him out of the air. Moriko stared; Tarahn hit the ground with a thud as they disappeared into the earth as quickly as they came.

The raigar rapidly regained his footing, and snarled angrily at Scypha. Moriko didn't blame him—this was really _annoying_. A second thunderbolt fizzled on the light screen or whatever it was, but she could have sworn the cap twitched this time.

"Keep using thunderbolt, it can't last forever," she said, decisively. _He can't attack forever, either,_ said an inner voice, but she ignored it.

Two more electric attacks had little noticeable effect, but on the third the cap visibly twitched and sagged.

"All right, we've got it now!" she said triumphantly. Tarahn gave a happy snarl and darted forward to launch a thunderbolt point-blank.

A forest of tentacles erupted from the ground and Scypha rose, sand spilling off of it like water. Tiny, mad eyes glinted on the black underbody; it tilted its pincers forward and a jet of water blasted directly at Tarahn, sending him rolling.

He righted himself and roared, tail lashing and the fur on his back all on end.

"Use agility," Moriko called, interrupting a string of mostly-unintelligible curse words.

The raigar shook himself off, nonchalantly, before disappearing.

He re-appeared above the tentacruel and landed delicately on its rubbery cap before proceeding to sink four sets of claws and his teeth into his opponent. Tarahn didn't like being embarrassed in front of spectators. He _tore_.

There was a horrible sound. It had a bizarre harmonic that made goosebumps run the length of the bodies of those listening; it sounded something like the groan of a ship's timbers in a gale, if the timbers were actually bones and the ship was crewed by the malevolent dead.

It made Tarahn freeze mid-rend; there was enough time for Moriko to wonder if he had heard something different, with his more sensitive perception, before Scypha caught him in its tentacles and swung him, hard, onto the sand.

The raigar seemed to explode with yellow light; electricity arced off of him and hit the force barrier, sizzling, but the majority traveled up the tentacles binding him. Scypha groaned again, though much more weakly. It seemed to go limp, flopping down onto the ground, tentacles still loosely encircling the electric-type.

Tarahn spat a glob of acid at the tentacruel. "Take that, you squishy sack of—"

A strange buzzing, whining noise emanated from the apparently inert jellyfish-like pokémon.

Moriko found it vaguely annoying, but noticed that Tarahn had started to paw at his ears and shake his head. _Supersonic?_

"Tarahn, finish it o—"

Scypha rose.

Limp tentacles caught the raigar in a crushing grip. Where this last reserve of energy had come from, or if it had been faking all along, she'd never know.

The tentacruel tilted its underbody forwards again, pincers gaping—it seemed to be preparing to use another water attack.

"Thunderbolt!" she called.

Scypha shoved the angry, flailing raigar between its pincers, and dove down into the sand, which once again had taken on that strange water-like quality.

The arena was empty, save for the red and blue cap sitting on the sand's surface, and perfectly still.

Moriko had had enough of psychotic pokémon and their trainers.

"I forfeit. Tarahn! Return!" she said, pointing the pokéball at the cap.

Nothing happened.

The sun was, all of a sudden, far too warm; her skin felt tight, she couldn't breathe, the arena walls seemed to rise far above her head; they were a pit now, a grave, and far above a demoness was silhouetted against the burning sky.

Heartbeats passed in the stillness. There was no air; something was crushing her lungs in a vise.

"YOU STUPID WORTHLESS DOCKSIDE WHORE! IF HE'S DEAD I'LL KILL YOU!"

_Killyoukillyoukillyou_, the arena echoed perfectly, in the space it took to take a breath.

"IF HE'S DEAD I SWEAR TO THE FOUR WINDS I WILL BATHE IN YOUR BLOOD!"

Someone was shouting. It took her a moment before she realized it was herself.

The sand burst outward. Tentacles hurled a yellowish shape onto the opposite side of the arena. She had jumped onto the ground before it had skidded to a stop.

She buried her face in the raigar's fur as he coughed fitfully, sand crusted on his eyes and nostrils.

The rage, black and spattered with blood, subsided. She wondered, dazedly, where it had come from, while a calmer voice reminded her that, yes, pokéballs didn't work when their occupant was dead… but also when the path to the occupant was blocked, i.e. if they were underground.

She'd just overreacted monstrously in front of a crowd, and worse, she'd lost.

What a day.

x.x.x.x.x

La! There you go, then. I hope it's all okay--finished the last bit tonight, be sure to tell me where I messed up, eh? n.n

Oh yeah, and be sure to check out the fanart Novadog did of Maia (there's a link on my profile page). It is SPIFFS. Lavish Nova with praises now, off you go mmkay?

School's still extremely busy, but I can still take time when I should be studying for math to write. And… yeah. Reviewer response is in the forums now. Cheers, all, and thanks for the reviews! Sweet things for those who comment. n.n


	21. Chapter 20: Flight of Fancy

Chapter 20: Flight of Fancy

She felt so _stupid_.

The three walked up the street to the pokémon center, weaving through the crowded streets. Vendors advertised their wares: everything from homemade curry and trail food to pokéballs and all-natural healing remedies.

Bellows and shrieks emanated from a section of greenspace where a number of trainers had congregated; a double battle was the center of attention, where a fearow and a pink sheeplike pokémon were facing off against a rapidash and a fat, yellow pokémon that looked like it was wearing a broad-brimmed hat. There didn't seem to be a clear advantage as they passed, but the fire horse was definitely hindered by the lack of space.

She dropped off Rufus and Tarahn's pokéballs before following the two male trainers to their triangle of cots, and collapsed onto her own.

"It's okay, Moriko, it wasn't that bad," said Russell, fanning himself with a magazine.

It could always have been worse, but it had been was incredibly embarrassing—and she'd had to give up quite a lot of money. That was how it worked, of course—a gym match was like any other, but with, generally, quite a larger bet riding on it.

After a pause, she sighed and got up.

"Going somewhere?" said Matt, lowering a copy of _Pokémon Journal_.

"Have to register to battle again," she said, looking dismal. "Wonder how long the wait will be this time?"

"Well, you look like you're having a good time feeling sorry for yourself, so I'll let you go, but I thought I might comment that you don't have to, necessarily."

"Feel sorry for myself or go?"

"Either. Both."

Moriko sat down heavily. "What."

"If you wanted to, we could continue on to the next town as normal and on schedule."

She massaged her eyes, which felt like they were trying to crawl out of their sockets in the heat. "I have to get this badge, so I might as well get it while I'm still here—efficiency, see?"

"Correct. However, consider this: we have to come back here anyway. Porphyry is the best place to catch a train or a ferry, one of which we will require to complete the last leg in a timely fashion." He pushed his hands through his damp hair; the room was like an oven.

"But… I'll have skipped level three," she said, feeling muzzy and disordered.

"Yeah, you can go on to level four without any problem—everybody goes out of order in Kanto and Johto, f'r instance. Here's only one of the places where people get hung up on order because of the geography, and because the level ranges are skewed higher. The only downside is that you're going to have to redo the gym at level seven—given that you're going to get the rest of the badges, which I'm sure you are."

Matt smiled in a way that seemed to make clear that progressing, for whatever reason, was very important to him and he would take a further interest if it meant gathering badges faster.

She looked at him in a way that suggested that she would thank him for not interfering, and anyway, when did he decide he was so good at everything?

His look said, I'm not the one who lost and then had a tantrum in front of a crowd of people.

Her look replied, I am this close to putting a boot in your mouth, asshat.

Russell looked at the ceiling in a way that implied vague annoyance, but mostly hunger.

"So Moriko, what do you think?" Russell asked. "It sounds pretty good to me, and she might not have the pokémon to compete with you at level seven. If she does, you'll get a fresh start, and you'll have a lot more practice. And… to be honest I'd like to get out of here. There's just something, I don't know… I don't sleep very well, anyway."

"Nobody does," she said dryly. "It's all the freaking people chatting until one in the morning, like this is some kind of big sleepover." She sighed. "Yeah, let's do it—I'm getting tired of the city, too."

"And don't worry about your money," said Matt, "we'll keep you fed. Anything else, you have to pay for."

"Thanks… I think," said Moriko, warily.

x.x.x.x.x

They left early the next day. The city was almost still in the faint light before dawn, and it was blessedly cool, the breeze full of the salty smell of the Lacuna Sea.

Porphyry City was surrounded by swamplands, most of it on the eastern side, and anyone wanting to make their way to Russet Town would have to pass through them, make a large detour to the south, or swim around via the north coast.

Matthew had decided for the group that it would be fastest to rent a boat.

Russell yawned widely as they sat on the dock, waiting for Matt to stop haggling with the man. Moriko cast a baleful eye at one of the boats they were trying to rent; she'd envisioned a motorboat, to be honest, but Matt was after a three-person canoe.

She didn't have much experience with canoes, but the little she did mostly had to do with trying to get back in after falling in the water.

They'd waterproofed their bags in preparation, 'waterproofed' here meaning 'put the contents in plastic bags, did them up tight and shoved them back into the backpack'.

Matt returned eventually. "We've got our canoe," he announced.

"What do we do when we're done with it?" asked Moriko, yawning.

"He gave me the coordinates for the opposite dock. We can leave it there and the ground should be hard enough for us to continue walking."

"Yay. Let's go," she replied, dully.

The canoe was unpainted metal and in surprisingly good repair; it lacked all the suspicious cracks and sharp edges Moriko had been expecting in her heightened state of cynicism. They managed to get their baggage and their selves into the craft without incident, and with the three of them paddling, were quickly on their way.

x.x.x.x.x

The swamplands were surprisingly varied. Close to the city, it resembled a partially submerged forest, but as they traveled west, the trees thinned and they passed through vast watermeadows, thick with reeds and lilies. Sometimes they noticed an outcropping of gray stone, choked with moss. Strangest of all were the occasional dead areas—where the water was actually semi-transparent and empty of plant life, aside from dead trees jutting from the water, bleached bone-white by the sun.

The heat was stifling. It was hard to decide which was worse: the damp, green heat under the trees or the unfiltered blaze of the sun on a watermeadow, alleviated only slightly by the faint breezes.

The air was suffused with the stench of decay and the raucous calls of birds, noisy but hidden by the greenery. The water teemed with life; occasionally the silvery flash of a fish's scales was visible, or the vibrant blue dorsal fin of a silteel.

It seemed that every other floating log was actually an alligator-like pokémon. Surligator, the basic form, was the most adept at camouflage; the small, alligator-like pokémon had a brownish green hide, with only a double row of bright yellow dorsal spots to differentiate it from the surrounding water. Its evolved form, alighar, was less common; they thought they caught a glimpse of one or two individuals, but the pokédex image was more informative: a dull, tealish green hide, with a pattern of orange-brown splotches arranged in rings. The final form was rarely seen in the wild, according to the pokédex, which was just as well; goredile could apparently reach lengths of twenty feet and its jaws could deliver enough force to puncture thick steel.

Both Moriko and Russell, their teams lacking water-types, were interested in capturing one of the surligator. However, a number of warning blows to the canoe, almost as soon as they slowed down, from somewhere in the mud-hued water seemed to indicate that their presence in the reptile pokémon's territory would be tolerated only if it was as transient as possible.

A flash of an iridescent wing, seen a long way off, might have been a papilliris, an intensely shy bug- and crystal-type butterfly pokémon. Like its counterparts in other regions, the previous forms were more common; the hairy caterpillar pilosite seemed to have a favorite species of tree, the infestation giving the plant the appearance of being draped with brightly colored feather boas. The pupal stage, crystalis, could occasionally be seen, groups of the semi-transparent crystalline cocoons cemented to the trunks of trees. They were bizarre, compared to the more familiar metapod or silcoon; two bullet-shaped crystals, joined at the conical end, surrounded by a halo of glittering filaments that seemed to attach the pupa to the tree bark.

It was late in the afternoon when they reached the dock, having had to navigate around a thousand tiny islands of greenery—quite apart from the trip to the general area in the first place.

The old, smooth wooden platform had been built, miraculously, on fairly dry land. There was a small house on stilts situated apart from it; a trickle of smoke was rising from a firepit nearby, and a cheap stereo was blaring mournful opera, the speakers buzzing and crackling, without which the dock would have been even _more_ irritating to locate.

Trying their best not to get too muddy or wet and failing miserably, they beached the canoe, collected their effects and started off north, towards the sea.

x.x.x.x.x

The transition from swampland and mangrove forest to relatively firm, dry ground wasn't as clear as the three trainers would have preferred; in fact, the small island the dock and cabin had been on was rather more the exception than the rule, but they reached the seaside without anyone sacrificing a shoe to the swamp's muddy depths.

The sun was only a sliver on the horizon by the time they started to set up their tents, and almost completely dark as they sat around the campfire, applying lotion to various bug bites and waiting for their washed and mud-free clothes (courtesy of Maia) to dry.

"So Moriko," Matt said eventually, as Russell dozed. "You and I really need to catch some more pokémon, huh?" The fire burnt with a green edge to it as he added more driftwood.

"Mm-hmm."

"A water-type for you, definitely."

"'m working on it," she muttered, scrolling through the pokédex entries—the one refuge of the bored.

"Silteel? Anatarn? Krabby?" Matt asked, referring to the various water types they'd seen just that day.

"Surligator," Moriko replied dejectedly. "I like _cool_ pokémon."  
"Might be a while before you have a whole team, then. You have to catch what's available, and go for the rarer ones when you have the luxury."

"I don't wanna," she muttered. "What's the point of training a pokémon you don't like?"

"You've got to give it a chance to grow on you. And besides, you can always put one in storage or send it to the professor's if you find a better one."

She shrugged. "I'd feel bad."

"You're sappy, Moriko."

"I know, but I have an ointment for it," she muttered.

x.x.x.x.x

Angela gave the pot of instant noodles a final stir before moving it off the embers of the fire. They were firm but thoroughly cooked, just how the four of them liked best.

"Soup's ready, guys," she called softly.

They'd walked until the sun was nearly set, like usual—they'd really formed a habit of eating their evening meal in darkness, it seemed.

She divided the noodles and broth into four bowls, lining them up near to the fire so they wouldn't get cold, as Kenzie turned up, followed by Victoria.

"Where's Dave?" Angela asked, after they'd started eating.

"He went off to train Ophelia earlier, I guess he's not done yet," said Vic, slurping her noodles and then giggling at her bad manners.

Angela chuckled at her and rolled her eyes. "Hah, you're such a ditz."

Of the four of them, David had come the closest to losing in Verdure and Porphyry both, and had been spending much of their downtime training his four pokémon. It left him pretty tired, but the pokémon seemed to like the attention. Dave—like the other three—was an over-achiever, after all; none of them liked, or were even accustomed to passing by only a narrow margin.

"Phoebus?"

The flareon's long ears pricked up at his name, and he looked over his shoulder at her. "Yeah?"

"Can you go find Dave? He's in the forest somewhere, training."

"Oh, sure." He rose from where he'd curled up by the fire, trotting off into the shadow beyond the firelight.

"Try not to burn anything," said Angela. Phoebus twitched his luxurious tail at her, cheekily.

She'd been glad when they'd gotten out of the swamp. The borfang were strong, but they could only fly two people a short distance at a time, and there were precious few options when it came to trying to land on reasonably dry ground. They'd ended up renting two boats, but it was just as well—they caught a couple pokémon and the scenery was just spectacular.

The marshlands had slowly turned into seawoods, still lush but not nearly as damp underfoot, and they were making great time again, interspersing rapid flights aboard Ophelia and Cavall with leisurely walks and attempts to track wild pokémon.

It was really a boon to have the storage devices. They would have offered to share with Russell's group, but Moriko would have adamantly refused. Besides, seven was a little large for a traveling party that hoped to make good time; the more people there were, the greater the chance of delays. Plus, people got lazy in a group, stopped taking as much responsibility for things. They'd had their share of spats already, with only four people—seven would be much worse. Exponentially worse, maybe.

To be fair, it might have been doable, if not for the vitriol that seemed to radiate from Moriko when it came to the four of them. Angela had tried to improve her relationship with her cousin, to show her that she wasn't her enemy, but it seemed to be beyond repair. The others felt similarly, but there really wasn't much they could do when every slight was taken as a deadly insult, and every light, teasing comment a renewal of hostilities.

"Damn, what's taking Dave so long?" asked Mackenzie, setting down his empty bowl. "Does he usually go this far away from the camp?"

"Maybe we should go look for him?" Vic suggested.

"Yeah, I feel kinda concerned, he's been gone for a while," said Angela. "Let's give Phoebus a chance to come back, he can track better than us, anyway."

They set about tidying the camp, rinsing dishes and utensils and collecting garbage before loading it all onto one of the storage devices. Cavall returned from hunting and began preening himself beside Phlox, who was sleeping off a meal of rodents, his nose hidden under his six tails. Rio slunk out of the shadows and sat near the fire, posture almost hilariously regal, as always.

After a quarter of an hour, however, the flareon had still not returned.

"This is getting a little annoying," said Angela.

"What do we do? What if someone's trying to split us up, or take our stuff if we all go looking for him?"

"You read too many murder mysteries, Kenzie," said Victoria dismissively, but she looked worried.

"I'm going to go look for him," said Angela, after a moment. "You guys stay here and look sharp."

"Are you sure you should go by yourself?" Vic said, her eyes wide from nervousness.

"Well, there's three of us—someone's going to be left alone if we split up," she replied. "And I think we're getting worried over nothing; I'm sure there aren't any monsters in the woods waiting to gobble us up. Dave's probably just reluctant to stop, and maybe Phoebus is waiting for him or even joined in too. I'll take Rio and Doris with me," Angela added, seeing their worried looks.

It wasn't the first time she'd had to be the voice of reason—Mackenzie loved that fear-feeling in the pit of his stomach (he had an enormous bootleg horror movie collection back home), and Victoria was sometimes a mirror and amplifier of the emotions of the group. More than once, they'd decided some monster was stalking them and spent a few minutes pleasantly terrified before it was found that the killer wintris, raigar or ursaring had actually been a squarrel, stantler or nothing at all.

Angela tossed Doris's pokéball to the ground, revealing the liver-colored dusquill. The porcupine-like pokémon rubbed at her beadlike eyes and looked at her trainer questioningly.

"Hey Doris," Angela said, as she dug through her pack, "I'm going to go look for Dave, he hasn't come back to camp yet. Want to come?"

The dusquill simply nodded, characteristically reticent. Angela found the flashlight she'd been looking for—it was slightly ironic that she had it out so it could be closer to hand—and started walking in the direction Phoebus had gone. Doris shuffled along, following, while Rio took his time to rise to his feet and stretch, before easily catching up with the two after a few bounding strides. After a moment, they'd vanished into the forest.

x.x.x.x.x

"You, my friend, are an idiot," he said into the rear-view mirror. "What were you thinking?"

"Shut up and drive," said the man lying on the back seat. He coughed, blood bubbling on his lips, and groaned as it sent lances of pain all through his body.

"Hey, don't die on me now, buddy," said the red-haired man. "You managed to live through that training set. Rank ten teleport training! An alakazam would have trouble with it, kid! So you got a little banged up. What's a little internal bleeding?"

The man behind him tried to say something, then fell to further coughing.

The driver turned in his seat. "Whoa now, you lie on your side so you don't choke now, right?"

"Fuckin'… watch the road," the other said, his purple eyes glassy as they stared at the ceiling.

The driver sighed. "No road, no trees, no wheels so I can't run over gophers or clawbit or something. What am I supposed to do, huh?"

"Turn on the damn heat, it's like ice back here," said the recumbent man, his gray and purple matted hair surrounding his head like a halo; along with his red-rimmed eyes and deathly pallor, he looked like some wasted, chthonic god.

The red-haired one grinned to himself, rubbing at the pale tracery of scars on his lips. He looked out onto the prairie, the horizon blurred with heat haze and the sun baking the grass so dry that it could cut. The air conditioning was faulty in this stolen ground car, and at the moment it wasn't even on. He grabbed a blanket from the driver's seat, tipping the various devices that'd been set on it onto the floor, and passed it back.

"Try to get some rest, bud. Want me to sing you a lullaby?"

"Just stop talking for, like, five minutes, you fugue-addled psychopath, and that'll be soothing enough," the wounded man snapped.

x.x.x.x.x

"Hey Moriko, I found—guh!"

"Shutupshutupshutup!"

Russell massaged his shoulder; Moriko had given his arm quite a jerk when she'd pulled him behind the rock.

"What is it?"

"There's a mooskeg over there, and not some just-evolved raigar bait like back in the mountains," she said, excitement punctuating every syllable.

He cautiously peered around the side of the rock, and sure enough, there was a big mooskeg bull standing in the shallows of the river, munching reeds and other water-plants. They were downwind from the beast, a stroke of luck.

"Omigods, what do I do? If it sees us it'll just run into the forest and I'll lose it!"

"Well, what pokémon do you have with you?"

"Rufus and Liona, Tarahn went off somewhere. Why?"

"Here, I'll help—"

"What? Two against one?" Moriko interrupted, accusingly.

"No, no, I mean Sylvia and Liona can scare it and make it run toward the sea, it'll be a lot more exposed on the sand. It's not like it can move _that_ fast in water, anyway."

"Hmm… and then I'll intercept it with Rufus when it's out of the water?"

"Precisely."

"Okay, let's fall back a bit so we can explain it to Liona and Syl—"

The wind changed. With a bellow, the mooskeg's head came up and he splashed off towards the opposite bank from them, heading for the rocks and gravel where he would be able to dash off into the safety of the seawood.

The two trainers leapt to their feet.

"Oh, arse!" said Moriko, hurling Liona's great ball out and over the water. "Liona! Catch him!"

The nigriff screeched, tearing off after the retreating bull. As she came near enough to swipe, he caught her a ferocious blow under the beak with one of his antlers.

Sylvia was out and attacked next, her dragon's wings scything through the air and rippling the surface of the river. Liona circled, her path meandering slightly as she tried to clear her head after the blow.

The mooskeg gave an enraged cry at the second attacker, and rose up on his hind legs to kick out with his hooves. Sylvia stayed out of striking distance, but barked and snarled at him, blinded him by filling his vision with flapping wings.

The moose-like pokémon made it to the edge of the river and tried to move in the direction of the forest, but Sylvia blocked his way. Instead of turning and going towards the sea, he lowered his head and tried to strike the borfang with his antlers. Liona took the opportunity to dive at the mooskeg's mossy flank, leaving a number of long, parallel wounds, but was shot with a blast of water as she circled around the pokémon.

"Let's go," said Moriko, "we have to cross, they're too far away to hear us properly."

"I—"

"Come on!"

The river wasn't very wide, about twenty feet across and maybe six feet deep at most, with a sluggish current. Discarding shoes and socks, they reached the middle easily; unfortunately, the mooskeg decided to charge back into the water at this point, coming straight for the two trainers.

"Arse!" Moriko swore again, and swam as hard as she could toward the shore, with Russell close behind. She felt hopelessly bogged down by her clothes, but it was a little late to worry about that.

The two flying pokémon tried to block the mooskeg's path, but he paid them little heed even as Sylvia flew in his face and Liona tore at his back. He seemed to have targeted her and Russell specifically, which was more than a little disconcerting.

It might have gone quite badly for them had Tarahn not seemed to come down from the sky, having made a terrific leap from the side of the river.

"Permission to come aboard?" he yowled, landing on the mooskeg's back and sinking four sets of claws into him.

That got the pokémon's attention. He bellowed with pain and frustration, trying to shake the raigar off; Tarahn held fast and clamped his jaws around the back of the mooskeg's neck. The grass- and water-type reared onto his hind legs—and kept going, flinging himself backwards; there was an enormous splash as his bulk hit the surface of the river.

Tarahn leapt clear and treaded water as the mooskeg rolled and surfaced with a roar, liquid streaming off his mossy hide and water-weed mane.

"Use spark—"

"_After_ we're out!" Russell interrupted.

Moriko paled at the thought of what she'd almost ordered, and made a renewed effort to reach the bank of the river. When the water was shallow enough to walk, she nearly tripped while sloshing through to the edge. Russell followed, a little more dignified, and joined her as she collapsed on the sand.

They needn't have hurried; Tarahn had fallen back and Liona had attacked again, distracting the mooskeg from his attempts to smash the raigar's skull with his hooves.

Moriko winced as Liona caught the moose pokémon with a punishing revenge attack; the mooskeg seemed dazed for a moment, before striking out with his teeth. The nigriff screeched as she lost a clump of feathers to the cervine pokémon's jaws, and again as she received another clip from a bony antler.

Tarahn attacked as she circled away, launching a ball of electrical energy at the moose pokémon; he gave a pained whine, quite unlike the bellows of before and seemed to wallow in the river, unable to stand. It was hard to see from where they were, but the mooskeg's muscles had been left twitching and shuddering from the electric burst.

Pokémon trainers always carried a few pokéballs on their person, just in case. Moriko selected an ultra ball and hurled it at the cervine pokémon while it was still paralyzed; it was a shame she didn't have any specialty net balls, which would have been particularly effective here.

The ball struck and converted the crippled pokémon into yellow light—and immediately burst open again. Russell managed to make a running catch of the ultra ball on the rebound, which was lucky: after a failed capture, the open ball tended to fly off in a random direction, almost invariably leading to the exposed internal components being destroyed on contact with the ground.

Tarahn followed through with a vicious poison claw attack, using the mooskeg's confusion following the failed capture to sneak up on him. His claws left parallel red lines along the grass pokémon's flank, oozing sap and slick with venom.

Bellowing with pain, the moose pokémon's antler caught the raigar on the jaw. As Tarahn retreated, the mooskeg attempted to make his own escape, which was pitiful to see; movement jerky and crippled from the paralysis, he staggered toward the bank even as Liona circled for another attack.

Moriko threw the ultra ball again; the moose pokémon's groan, as it struck his injured flank, was distorted and cut short as he was converted to energy and disappeared into the ultra ball.

Matt appeared on the other side of the stream as she splashed into the shallows to retrieve it, Maia in tow.

"Having a party without me?" he called. "Looks like you guys should lay off the drink, if you're going to keep falling in like that."

"I caught a mooskeg!" Moriko said, waving the ultra ball excitedly.

"Oh, wonderful! You might have six pokémon by the time we get to Thalassa Heights, if you're lucky."

"Says the guy with three pokémon," Moriko retorted, annoyed.

Matt put his head on one side. "Mmm. Touché."

The two trainers re-crossed the river, Tarahn close behind and the two flying pokémon following lazily.

"So, what's up? Just came looking for us?" Russell asked, once they were all on the same side, taking off his shirt and trying to wring the water out of it.

"Yeah, I thought I was imagining the sounds of a distant fight, but after a while I decided they might be real and went to go look. Missed the whole thing, naturally." He stroked Maia along the side of her spinal crest as she glided past him, toward the water.

Tarahn climbed out of the river and shook himself, further wetting the already soaked trainers; Matt barely seemed to notice.

"What was with that guy?" he asked, rubbing at the fur above his eye. "Good aim with his antlers, my jaw's going to be hurting for a while."

"You didn't bite your tongue, did you?" asked Moriko.

"Nah. See?" The raigar opened his mouth, exposing purple, mottled gums and his huge canines.

Moriko drew back, coughing and waving her hand in front of her face. "You have the worst breath, buddy."

Tarahn cackled and, abruptly losing interest, moved off toward the camp.

Moriko followed the raigar, tossing her new capture's ultra ball into the air and catching it as she walked. "Hey, it was really good that you showed up. You were a big help."

"I was done eating and I heard you guys fighting, so I decided to see if anything interesting was happening."

A raucous cawing erupted behind them as Liona dove at and circled an outcropping of rock that a group of wingull had colonized; the nigriff looked like a comet, screeching derisively at the head while pursued by a cloudy tail of the seagull pokémon. The wingull were faster and lighter than Liona, but they had tiny wings and little stamina for a chase, quickly dropping back to return to their rocky outpost.

A moment later, Liona was back, stirring the flock up again. Moriko watched for a while before continuing on, Tarahn already a ways ahead.

The raigar was snoozing by the time she got back to their circle of tents, and Matt—having passed her, somehow, on the way back—was busying himself by setting up the fire as darkness approached. She noted an absence.

"Where's Russell?"

"He and Sylvia went for a little flight."

"Oh. Just for fun?"

"I think so." He paused, tapping the gritty soil with a bit of driftwood. "Sylvia might've been a little anxious, but I don't know canines that well."

Moriko nodded and set about assembling the various items she figured she'd need to placate an angry, just-captured pokémon; a super potion, some poison antidote, a muscle relaxant to help with paralysis, pokémon treats (herbivore mix), Rufus and Tarahn nearby just in case…

Naturally, Russell and Sylvia took that moment to return, bringing some distracting tidings.

x.x.x.x.x

Russell loved flying, the speed and the lightness of it, the rushing of the wind. Sylvia's wings beat on either side of him, the dark bones webbed with a semi-transparent membrane. He watched the treetops pass below, a sea of leaves, through the space between her neck and wing.

"There," she said. "On your right." He felt the growling bark resonate; a human voice might be whipped away by the wind, but he could detect the sense of it, the translator present or not.

The prevailing winds were easterly, the tall trees along the narrow beach made it difficult to see the horizon, and it was a fair distance from where they'd been camped, but…

It was hard to believe how this could have escaped their notice.

To the southwest, the forest was burning.


	22. Chapter 21: Lost and Found

Chapter 21: Lost and Found

There was a small forest fire burning just ahead of them.

No problem.

They'd just keep track of the wind, use flying pokémon as lookouts, and walk around it.

Nothing to worry about.

They put about ten kilometers of distance between them and the burning area. The wind was blowing towards the fire, so they'd probably be protected from ash and noxious gases.

The campfire smell was quite strong, as they followed faint animal tracks and streams, adjusting their course based on what Sylvia, Liona or Badbyax had to report.

_Forest_ _fires follow a teardrop-shaped path, burning forwards and outwards along the axis of the wind's direction._

Step over a tree root, slide on patch of gravel, avoid crushing wildflower…

_Only the leading edge of the fire is actually burning. The rest is smoldering, or burnt out._

Ford stream, adjust course more to the south, nearly trip over exposed stone…

_The fire is… odd. It couldn't have been from a lightning strike._

Step, step, step…

_It follows… a path, almost._

Watch Russell try to catch a martgue and fail, more roots and rocks…

_Like… like someone is spreading the fire behind them, wherever they go. And then it spreads from there._

Watch the ground pass by, Matthew's heels go up and down and fall back and swing forward…

_What would do that?_

A day, a bloody sunset, a sleepless night…

_I'm… not sure. Fire types prefer hot places, usually—volcanoes, deserts… prairies, sometimes. I can't remember any that might live around here._

The sun returns, as always, and more walking…

_Even then, there aren't many that would run around, just burning things for no reason._

More streams, the smell of smoke, everywhere…

_A wild pokémon doesn't have that kind of free time, and a trainer wouldn't let their pokémon do that… surely?_

And on and on and on and—

Stop.

There was a pig, watching them.

Moriko froze in mid-step. The other two slowed, halted as they noticed the pattern of footfalls change.

It watched them from on top of a small rise, ochre hide and the autumn-hued leaves that ornamented it making it obvious among the dark brown and vibrant greens of the seawood.

For a moment, the forest was abruptly still, otherworldly. Then: the drone of an insect's wings as it passed, a bird calling somewhere, far-off. Wind whistled in the treetops, high above them.

"You smell young and healthy," said the arboar, his voice a rumble, rich as dark chocolate. "I wonder, then, why you are going to your deaths."

A rustle and a click. "_Arboar,_" said Russell's pokédex faithfully. "_Grass and fire-type._ _Evolves from leaflet at level twenty-two. Despite being part fire type, it does not learn any fire-type attacks, aside from those taught by technical machines. Largely good-natured, but prone to sudden rages."_

"What lies ahead?" Matt said, with something of a fallen-into-fairyland quality to his voice.

The boar pokémon's bristly, red-brown hide was covered in a tracery of white-pink scars, and one tusk had snapped off at the base; obviously not a stranger to violence.

His tiny eyes glittered. "Questions. As I said: mortal peril."

"Of what sort?"

The absurdity of the situation struck Moriko: three trainers in a wood, one demanding answers of a six hundred-pound pig capable of goring and trampling any of them, or all three, to death, but was instead choosing to humor them.

"A terror. Shadow and flame, the death of the wood."

"The thing that started the fire," said Matt.

"To be sure." He rose, hooves pressing into the loam as his enormous bulk rested on them. He shook himself, leafy mane rustling like a tree in a gale.

A silence. And then:

"It's a svarog, isn't it?"

The boar pokémon stared at him, expression inscrutable. "Yes," he said finally. "A svarog. Alas, one of my kin; the change brought a madness upon her. It is not unknown. She will run until she is exhausted and dies." He glanced toward the west. "Or if the madness breaks, but I have always been unrealistically hopeful."

"A sva… what?" said Moriko, glancing at Matt and recoiling as she noticed the fervor in his expression.

"I would advise against it," the arboar said, astutely, looking at Matthew. "You may be humans, ravening and insatiable, but I have seen enough of destruction in this forest."

"Where is she?"

Moriko stared at him. After all this, he wanted to… _catch_ the monster? The svarog, whatever it was?

The arboar seemed to slump, looking profoundly old. "I would have done better to have said nothing, I see," he said, hollowly. "But… as she is, she is as good as dead, after all…"

The arboar looked toward the west again before speaking, voice distant.

"Do what thou wilt."

"Tell me where to find her," said Matt, not bothering to hide the—there was no other way to describe it—_hunger_ in his voice.

The boar pokémon had turned, started to move off. He glanced back, halting his heavy, ponderous gait for a moment.

"Why, follow the fire, certainly."

x.x.x.x.x

"What are you _doing_?"

She and Russell followed Matt, nearly running, as he stalked off at the same ferocious dogtrot he'd adopted after speaking with the nigriff, Liona's brother.

_Which reminds me,_ Moriko thought, as her booted feet scattered loam and dead leaves, and she nearly fell down inclines, _he still hasn't explained that._ _Better bug him about it, if I can remember._

She watched him as he moved ever ahead, wearing the backpack like it weighed nothing, while Russell's breath started to come ragged and her eyes stung from the sweat running into them.

Finally she did run, clattering ahead to seize his backpack by the sides—

And had to dig her heels into the ground and throw her weight backwards just to stop herself from being dragged forward.

The pack slipped off his shoulders and she staggered as only she was left supporting it. He continued forward a few paces before turning to face her, his expression quite ghastly.

"Matt!" she yelled, exasperated. "You are going to _die_."

He stood there, panting, a mixture of emotions playing across his features: annoyance, anger, that bizarre yearning…

Fear?

"I know," he said, regaining some of his composure. Willed himself to be calm. "Aren't we all?" Tried to be flippant, failed. "By smoke inhalation, probably. That's usually what does it."

"_Why?_ What's the _point?_"

Took a breath to speak; exhaled and said nothing.

He bent, took his backpack from Moriko's nerveless fingers, hoisted it onto one shoulder easily.

"Go on," he said, looking away from them. "You don't need me."

"Matt."

Matthew looked up, caught the thrown pokéball. There was a faded leaf decal on it.

"Catch up with us when you're done," said Russell, distantly. "Bring her back, or you'd better be dead yourself."

x.x.x.x.x

Sylvia flew west, alongside the strange, erratic path of the blaze, smoke hanging over it in a noxious cloud.

Matthew Sleet was aware of many sensations as he clutched at the borfang, limbs crabbed and eyes closed. Wind in his hair. The stumps of Sylvia's trimmed dorsal spines pressing into his chest. The gently seesawing feeling when she broke her glide to beat her wings. That ever-present feeling of loss. (Saw a fearow in his mind's eye, pushed the image away). The hilariously ironic fear that was, in fact, the reason he was doing this.

One of them, anyway.

If something could be fought and mastered, would it disappear?

He opened his eyes, turned his head to look down at the treetops, watched them approach and fall behind.

Maybe.

"Are we close?" he said, his words disappearing into the wind, tried to transmit the sense as best he could.

"Almost," said Sylvia. "There!"

Barely visible in the smoke and haze, and through the mask of the trees themselves, was a mass of flame. It ran with a frightening speed, dodging and weaving, changing direction randomly, but always on and on.

They had to get away from the smoke. He really would die if he tried to engage the svarog as it ran west, the wind pushing all those fumes and poisons towards him.

"Good girl. Keep following, we'll get it when it runs south. Fly a little lower."

The borfang complied, dipping one wing and shifting closer to the treetops; far below, their quarry slammed into an ancient pine, ripping a chunk of the wood out in a shower of splinters and bark. Fire licked the wound, spread through the dry needles on the forest floor.

x.x.x.x.x

The old arboar sow was huge and robust with a double row of tusks, though she'd not fought, not needed to fight, in many a season. Her daughters and their mates rooted idly, or dozed in what sunlight filtered down from the canopy.

She felt the loss of Dzalar keenly, though the safety of the rest of the sounder took priority. They'd avoided her rampage for now, though the smell of the smoke was still bitterly familiar.

It was a cruelty; they would burn the forest when they evolved.

Last year's farrowed leaflet played at a game of pushing, hooves scrabbling in the dirt as they pressed their foreheads together until one was overcome. Their manes were turning already. They'd have evolved, by this time next year: green manes turned to yellow and orange, brown and red, and pale peach hides darkened to an earthy hue.

Hofst had gone to see what could be done for their wayward child.

She dozed, briefly, before waking to a boar nosing her gently.

"You are not burnt to ashes, I see," she said. "Did you give up already?"

Hofst clicked his tusks. "Certainly. A pampered pet, I am, after all." They touched snouts. "I believe… I may have found something to help her."

"What?"

"There were three humans in the wood."

"Where?" said the sow, the sound a growl.

"Nowhere near us, and distracted in any case. I… told them about Dzalar."

"Ah." She relaxed. "The madness was good for something, at least."

"One of them… might be able to survive, and take her away."

She grunted. "A betrayal."

"She may live to return, this way."

"Always the crafty one, you are."

He settled down beside her, as the earth wheeled toward darkness. There was always something to be lost.

x.x.x.x.x

Maia jumped heavily into a nearby beech, claws scrabbling at the wood. Behind her, the tree she'd been in toppled, fire crawling up its length.

The svarog bellowed in rage and set about attacking her new perch, ignoring the jets of water that the tibyss sprayed down onto her.

The monster was an enormous boar, a dark shape wreathed in flame, with smoke, endless plumes of it, pouring off of and obscuring her body.

Matt applied liberal amounts of burn salve to Björn's pink skin and singed fur. The ursaring had tried, but any sort of direct attack against the monster just resulted in widespread burns.

His hands shook, the impulse to run as fast and as far as possible very strong. He kept a rein on himself, as best he could, but the fear was like an animal thrashing in his mind. He worked quickly; if the thing took notice of him, it would be the end of his control and probably his life, as well.

He'd considered the idea that the arboar had led him into a trap. It was possible; there was little enough reason for wild pokémon to trust humans. He had a hunch, though, that there were two ways this scenario would run, and either would benefit the pokémon.

Parents did strange things, sometimes.

Their only reprieve was that the svarog didn't seem to be able to control and launch an attack with her flame, something that all fire types took time to learn. She was still formidable, however, with three razor-sharp tusks on either side of her snout, and strong enough to rip at the trunks of trees as if they were made of sugar.

"How's that? Better?"

The ursaring rose to his hind legs, flexed his forepaws. "Is good," he grunted.

"Good," Matt echoed. "You're up again. Try an earthquake."

Björn's eyes glittered under a heavy brow ridge. "At last," he said, slouching off toward his opponent and Maia.

"Don't get used to it," Matt called after him.

The ursaring roared a challenge, followed by an ordinary-looking stomp as the boar pokémon turned to face him. She was shaken violently and completely swamped by the resulting wave of dirt and other detritus from the forest floor.

Debris exploded outward as she rose, shaking herself free. She continued to ignore Maia's water attacks, but Matt fancied she was burning less intensely.

It was a start.

Björn performed a second earthquake attack, then used a faint attack to dodge her charge when she burst out of the debris, the dark type attack propelling him faster than he could have moved under his own volition.

The svarog was ridiculously fast, turning and charging again, catching the ursaring on the side with her tusks and slicing him like a razor. He'd managed to get his own slash attack in, paws singeing, as she passed, but it wasn't much compared to the hit he'd sustained.

She lined up for a third run at Björn, but hit nothing as he disappeared into a beam of blue light.

"Badbyax! Your turn," Matt called, tossing a much newer-looking super ball.

Maia resumed distracting the svarog as the ravener appeared and circled the area, taking in the situation.

"Ambitious, yah?" the ravener remarked dryly.

"I caught you, didn't I?" Anytime was Witty Exchange Time when this raven pokémon was around.

"Have done, cuckoo chick! Luck, that was," Badbyax cawed harshly.

Matt grinned, his still-trembling hands hidden behind him. Badbyax had been the leader of a murkrow murder not long ago. He knew about challenging weakness.

"Don't touch it. I used most of the burn salve on Björn already."

"Tchah! Wasted it."

Maia's tree toppled with a hideous cracking and splintering, the tibyss launching herself to the next tree at the last moment. Matt watched as her claws caught on the bark—and as she slid down, too heavy for the tree to support her.

The svarog snarled, rearing up against the oak to slash at Maia with her tusks. She'd come into range if she slipped much further—

"Maia—" Matt found himself gasping, then sighed with relief as Badbyax finally attacked, his razor wind technique scything at the svarog's hide.

The tibyss fell to the ground in a shower of bark and debris as the boar pokémon's attention was held by the ravener.

"How are you doing?" Matt whispered, going towards her.

"Fine," she said, stretching. "A little shaken up. Trees are not quite my forte."

He closed his hands over one of her bioluminescent spots; dim, but not unexpectedly so. "I know," he said. "Very good work. Badbyax should finish her off."

The glade was briefly lit with a weird light as the ravener hit the svarog with a shadow ball attack. She wheezed and squealed, leaving a trail of black ichor as she charged ineffectually after her airborne opponent. Unable to control her flame, the boar pokémon had no means of retaliating against Badbyax, who hit her effortlessly with attack after attack.

As she collapsed onto her stomach, body hidden more by smoke than by flame, Matt stepped forward with an ultra ball in hand.

His heart clenched as he looked into her eyes.

They were like a pair of glowing coals at the bottom of a mine; a monster's eyes, far-off in the darkness. The color drained from his face as he was struck by the intensity of her killing intent.

Her smouldering body-flames suddenly roared into life as she launched herself at a run, in a single motion seeming to go straight from exhausted collapse into a barreling charge.

He stood, rooted to the spot.

A painful sharpness seemed to overlay everything in his vision. He could have counted every leaf or needle on every tree, every stick and twig and branch. Badbyax flew in place behind and above the smoking, flaming monster that was coming for his trainer.

How hilariously ironic was it, really, that the very fear that was supposed to aid in keeping him alive was now killing him?

He'd opposed that fear to come and try to capture this thing. It had nearly had him, making him walk at that frantic pace that the other two trainers could barely match.

Run away, away, away. And here was truly the time for running, but he could not.

His punishment, he supposed, for not playing by the rules.

He had time to think, time to wonder, and then suddenly time was running again, death coming for him after all to cut him to ribbons and trample him into the ground.

Maia tackled the svarog.

The fire- and grass-type overbalanced and rolled. The tibyss tore wildly at the boar's face, ignoring the flame burning her everywhere she touched. The svarog squealed, kicking and flailing her head. Maia leapt clear as the boar pokémon tried to roll again and crush her.

Badbyax performed another, final, shadow ball attack.

Matt watched the weird glow fade, shocked and numb, before turning his attention to the burnt and bleeding heap to his right, ignoring utterly the still-smoking pokémon just beaten into submission.

x.x.x.x.x

Moriko swore, massaging her lower back. She cast a furious glare over her shoulder at the mooskeg: a doe, not a buck after all, but pokémon gender wasn't always that easy to tell if you weren't waving your pokédex at everything that moved. The stupid thing had hit her right in the kidneys with one of those antler sweeps she seemed to be so fond of.

The mooskeg was currently on her side being held in a headlock by Rufus, which unfortunately did nothing to halt the blistering stream of invective directed towards her, with the occasional stab at Russell and the oxhaust.

Despite her injury, Moriko couldn't help but gaze in wonderment. The mooskeg knew how to swear, entire phrases not quite coming across despite the aid of the translator. She was insulting the trainer with concepts Moriko had little analogue for.

It would be impressive if her back didn't hurt so much right now.

"Look," she said, straightening gently. "Okay, I understand that you're angry—"

"Angry? Angry? How can you _live_, you cowardly pile of excreta, you cringing streak of sparkat piss, knowing that you cannot so much as _fight_ without the aid of not only your pitiful capture-addled slaves, but also another one of your miserable parasite-crawling kind and _his_ thoughtless worms?"

"Um, thanks for that," muttered Russell, sitting down. He'd leapt to his feet as Moriko was attacked.

"We're friends," said Rufus, voice rumbling. "'m not a slave."

"It talks!" she replied in mock wonderment.

"'s true. Moriko's real nice—"

"Oh, be silent, fool! As if the word of a predator bound as a calf holds _any_ value whatsoever," she said scornfully.

"Obviously we didn't quite get off on the right foot here," said Moriko, massaging her closed eyes.

"Oh good, I'm _so_ glad I made that clear—"

"I'm sorry that it wasn't quite a fair fight, but Sylvia—the borfang never touched you, and only one of my pokémon ever attacked you at one time."

"Thank you for your courtesy! What a good thing it was that one of us was calm enough to have a completely unbiased view of the proceedings! I almost forgot the part where you used violent means to subdue me before removing me from my familiar locale, which I very sincerely doubt I will ever be permitted to return to! What _else_ do you have to say to me, O eel-tongued one?"

"Well—look, you've been caught, alright? Help me for a while, and I promise I'll take you back at the end!"

"Help you?" the mooskeg spat furiously. "Tell your monster to break my neck this instant, then, for a _corpse_ will be more inclined to aid you than I, you sniveling—"

"We'll talk later," said Moriko over the moose pokémon's renewed vitriol. "Return."

Rufus relaxed as the water and grass-type disappeared from his hold, converted into energy mid-sentence.

"She's gonna take some convincing, Mor," said the oxhaust, rising to his hooves and stretching.

"Lovely personality," said Russell, laying back down onto the pallet he'd made from their bags.

"Mm-hmm. Sure didn't go as well as I'd hoped." She attached the ultra ball to her belt. "What's Matt's secret, anyway?"

"Ask him."

She made a moue of distaste, but nodded. "Yeah, I guess I'd better. Some people might be able to tow around a disobedient pokémon for months, but that's just too annoying for me."

"You need her for the next gym, too. Fire-type."

"Lovely. You think Matt managed to catch the svara-thing?"

"It's possible, but you never know what might happen. Battles can be unpredictable."

"Got that right," she agreed somewhat absently, watching Rufus burn a stick into ash with the flames on his arm.

The light, evening-red as it was, flickered, and they glanced up. Just as they decided it was probably nothing, branches were sliding and snapping against Sylvia's wings as she fought her way to the forest floor.

Matt half-jumped, half-fell off her back, stumbled as he hit the ground.

"And?" said Moriko.

Matt held up an ultra ball, wordlessly.

"Maia's… she isn't doing too well," he said, voice constricted. "She should be okay if she's in her ball, but…"

"Let's go then," said Russell as he rubbed Sylvia's muzzle. "Russet Town's only a few days away."

"Yeah, and the fire should be burning normally now," Moriko added. "We'll be able to go further since it's less unpredictable."

Matt nodded, looking incredibly tired. "Right, right. Let's go."

x.x.x.x.x

A flash of light as pokémon were recalled, and then the three trainers had hoisted their packs and were off, trekking through the woods.

Hofst watched them go. It was amazing how powerful humans were, considering their remarkable dullness of perception. He would have smelt himself immediately from this distance.

A muscle clenched in his belly, seeing Dzalar's new prison. Black with yellow stripes, like a wasp. Was it preferable, this way? Really? He couldn't say. He really couldn't. Either way was a death, or a kind of one.

Could she return one day? Was that a dream he could even entertain? If she was ever released, could she possibly live with them again?

Even when she embodied their greatest fear?

He had always been unrealistically hopeful.

It was a cruelty, truly, that to evolve meant becoming the death of the wood.

He sat for a time, the trainers long disappeared aside from their trail of scent, before vanishing himself, lost in the undergrowth.

x.x.x.x.x

Is it sad that I needed to be on holiday to finish this chapter? Oh well… anywho, a big thanks to all the reviewers, and the reviewer response is in the forums. Love!


	23. Chapter 22: Trainer Guilt

Chapter 22: Trainer Guilt

Angela looked up, her eyes red and puffy from crying. Victoria's eyes were closed, her head resting on her arms, while Mackenzie's face was blank and pale as he stared off into space.

They looked haggard and exhausted, hair mussed and unwashed, with dark half-moons under their eyes.

Moriko doubted her group looked much better. She felt like she hadn't slept in days, and Matt was near nervous collapse. Russell had gone on, uncomplaining as always, but she could tell he was exhausted as well.

Why would _they_ look tired, anyway, with all their comforts at their fingertips? What could they possibly—?

"Dave?" said Russell.

Angela nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

x.x.x.x.x

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Angela blew her nose, shrugged.

"Dave didn't come for dinner… I went looking for him, and… well, he was training his pokémon a little ways away, he almost lost in Porphyry. I sent Phoebus to try to find him first, and then I went… and…" she trailed off, reaching up to cover her quivering mouth.

"Ophelia attacked Dave," said Kenzie, dully.

"Oh my gods," Russell whispered. "Are you three all right?"

"Let's just say it's been a horrible few days," said Victoria.

x.x.x.x.x

Like most settlements that developed near or because of their hot springs, Russet Town was milking the phenomenon for all it was worth. The town had the added bonus of Gaiien's frontier mystique, which guaranteed a not inconsiderable influx of visitors all year. Traveling to a hot spring to enjoy its purported curative properties was considered fashionable, and the further away you could afford to travel, the more fashionable you were.

Moriko regarded it with a certain amount of disdain. The town used the geothermal energy to generate electricity and heat water, but a distinct rotten-egg smell tended to pervade every space, making her wonder if it was worth it. She supposed everyone here had gotten used to the stench.

The 'center, like most of the town, had decided on stone architecture with that hewn-from-the-living-rock look. There was an unlit fireplace at one end of the lounge, a collection of chairs and couches around a television set, and plush rugs overlaying the stone floor. A couple of other trainers had commandeered the remote and were watching an extraordinarily dull pokémon contest.

Moriko half-dozed in her chair. Matt was stretched out in his stocking feet on a couch, sleep finally caught up with him. Something had happened to David, as far as she could gather, but she wasn't terribly concerned. Russell was too nice for his own good, really. Not her problem.

x.x.x.x.x

"We were paralyzed, really," said Kenzie. "One person going to get help was dangerous, but so was leaving one behind with Dave. A pokémon by itself might not be understood, or might even get captured or hurt by some overzealous trainer."

"I ended up going," said Victoria. "Cavall flew me to the nearest place we could find, this tiny little logging town… Blackwood-on-the-Mere. They got a message up to Russet Town and, well, here we are." She smiled weakly.

"I don't know what we would've done if she'd had to go further," said Angela. "They said it was… very bad, when the paramedics came with a jumpship to get him."

Russell took her hand. "I'm sure you did your absolute best. He probably wouldn't have made it if you hadn't been taking care of him."

Angela nodded wordlessly, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

"They're saying he's doing better," said Kenzie. "Stable condition. Not much to look at though."

"They're talking about putting Ophelia down," said Victoria.

Russell felt a black void open up inside him. It wasn't… surprising, but at the same time, could you imagine anything worse?

Even if you loved your pokémon, if they turned on you without provocation...

Even if they were sorry. Even if they knew they'd done wrong.

Who was to say it wouldn't happen again? To you? To someone else?

Journal articles he'd read scythed through his mind. Borfang aggression, borfang behavior, starter designation under review…

What about Sylvia?

"I'm sure we'll find out the whole story after Dave wakes up," Russell said, even as dark wings fluttered past his heart.

"I-I just can't get over it," said Angela, voice breaking. "She kept saying…"

x.x.x.x.x

Ophelia alternately whined and growled, flapping her wings with a spasmodic anger before crumpling to the ground, crying pitifully.

Phoebus stood near Dave's prone form, legs rigid and every hair on his body standing straight out while Selene whimpered, licking gently at her trainer's face. The yellow rings on her body glowed fitfully as Angela approached. Dimly, she heard Branwyn's distressed honking as the goose pokémon flew above the clearing.

Her heart seemed to stop as she saw what had been done to him. She took off her shirt, first aid courses coming back to her, but what could she do? Did he need a compress? A tourniquet? His face and chest had been torn to ribbons.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the borfang approaching, her movements jerky.

"Stop!" she said, whirling. "Did you do this?"

Ophelia flattened herself on the ground, her wings astray and her tail tucked under her body.

"Nonononono, bad dog, bad dog," she whimpered. In an instant her expression grew wild and she snarled before starting to chew on her own leg, which was already running red with blood. "Bad, bad, bad," she seemed to mutter.

"I think it was an accident," said Selene, her voice mouse-small.

Angela glanced at the umbreon, turned back to Ophelia.

"Ophelia, look at me," she said firmly. "What happened?"

"I didn't—I didn't—bad dog! Bad dog! No biting! No, no, nonono—"

The borfang froze, eyes staring into space.

"Ophelia—" she ventured, before the borfang uttered a terrifying howl.

Angela stared, hugging herself, as the wolf pokémon spread her wings and launched herself into the night, her pitiful cries echoing off the treetops.

x.x.x.x.x

"…It was just… it was misery, pure misery, when she howled. That's what it seemed like."

"Wow." Russell watched her, resting his head on one hand. "I… that is _weird_." He almost wanted to go talk to Dave now, to try to get some kind of explanation for Ophelia's utterly bizarre behavior.

And if there was none forthcoming?

Well, then it was an unprovoked attack, and the law was very clear on what should happen next.

"And in the morning," Angela was saying, "we found her nearby, but… she'd been gnawing her legs again, and… it looked like… I don't even _know_ what she was doing, but she had scratches all over, like… maybe she was rolling on some rocks or something, who knows…"

"Her wings were torn up, too," supplied Kenzie.

Russell slumped in his chair. "This is just too bizarre. You guys have no idea…?"

They shook their heads. "None," said Victoria.

"I honestly can't imagine," said Mackenzie.

x.x.x.x.x

She'd wanted to visit the gym as soon as possible, but Russell said he was too worried about David to concentrate properly, and even Matt admitted to being tired still.

Moriko explored the town while she waited. Many of the shops catered to the wealthy, traveling here from overseas, or making the quick jaunt from Porphyry or Port Littoral: handmade clothing, semi-precious stones and fossils unearthed in the many mining towns of the region, rustic art, and of course, breeders selling local pokémon.

Others sold supplies and gear for trainers, which she browsed, trying to remember which ones had the better deals. They'd live off the pokémon center for now, but they'd need a lot of food for their next part of the journey. Crossing the desert wouldn't be fun, to put it mildly.

She battled a few trainers for sport, having little enough money to bet, but one win followed by two losses only deepened her gloom.

Finally, Moriko ended up heading to one of the cheaper hot spring baths, hoping that she could soak some of her troubles away. According to rumour, the spring on the top of the mountain had cured cancer in a number of unverifiable cases. This rough concrete pool smelling of sulphur and foot odour was probably good enough for mild depression, but she wasn't optimistic.

It was a cool day; the nearly-scalding water would probably have been intolerable if it weren't for the shade and intermittent breezes. This would probably be amazing to do during the winter, to dart through the freezing air and then sink into a pool like an all-over blanket.

There were a couple of other girls at the other end of the bath, chatting animatedly; they had their pokémon out, a couple in the water and a few on the deck. Moriko wasn't completely sure if that was allowed, but there wasn't anyone to tell them otherwise, so she retrieved her pokéballs as well.

Tarahn had splashed into the water immediately and now seemed to be in heaven, as far as she could read his expression; she had to resist the urge several times to nudge him to make sure he wasn't dead as he floated limply in the pool. Liona dipped her paws in to show willing, but she wasn't very interested and eventually went off to preen her wings instead. Rufus she actually managed to talk into going into the hot water for a few moments, but he still complained of it being a little chilly and found a sunny spot on the grass to steam off in. She'd heard about pokémon centers and spas in Kanto and Johto with magma baths that fire-types enjoyed, so she supposed it wasn't too surprising that he didn't care for the hot springs.

The mooskeg she still hadn't made up with, and she was getting anxious about that. Every time she'd let her out, the moose pokémon had resumed trying to maim and trample her, steadfastly refusing to listen to any kind of persuasion or cajoling. Matt had said that she needed to play on the mooskeg's fears: starvation, sickness, old age, attack by predators… of course, if the one thing she wanted was her freedom, above all promises for a better life, there was nothing she could do.

Moriko hoped she could find some kind of leverage over the pokémon, because if she was forced to release her, well, there went her type advantage over the fire-type gym in town.

She wasn't sure what she'd do if she lost again.

She watched the other girls' pokémon, to try to get her mind off her misery. One of them had a shining warhare by the look of it, with purple and green patterns on its fur instead of the normal blue and red. The sparkling dustmotes that floated off of it like shiny dandruff were a definite clue as well. She felt a pang of jealousy as she noticed the ice-type wintris lounging in the shade in its olive-and-red summer coat; individuals of the wolflike pokémon species spent most of their time rather further north during the summer, and she found herself wondering where the other trainer had picked one up. They'd had someone passing out starters wherever they were from, too; a suiline surfaced from underwater, steaming, and a borfang lay in the sun, wings outstretched.

It was funny how everything she'd heard and read about Gaiien had given her the impression that it was this enormous, empty land with few people and fewer towns, when the truth was that there were plenty of people. It wouldn't _work_ if there weren't. Pokémon training was a multi-billion-yen industry, but not everyone's lives revolved around it. Mining, forestry, farming, fishing, trapping… all were much bigger than pokémon training in this region, but they were hard to glamorize.

Still, Gaiien was a big place; trainers congregated in the cities and towns to test their strength and purchase supplies, but with few real paths and roads, it was unlikely that they'd meet any outside of the various settlements.

She'd been looking at the region through Kanto-tinted glasses, she supposed. Kanto and Johto, where pokémon training was enormous and fourth and fifth-grade classes were often empty of ten-year-olds as they took their year off to go pokémon training as an excuse to get out of school. Where there were so many kids clamoring to fight gym leaders that they had to employ multiple lieutenants to try to reduce the volume looking for a match with the actual leader—but even then, the waiting lists were pretty long. And it wasn't as if you were limited to the same eight gyms, either.

Kanto, where you could ride a bus between cities, never spend a night out in the open if you didn't want to, and never had to worry about some monster stalking you through the woods and tearing out your heart.

Human monsters, maybe, she thought, and almost shivered at the morbidity of it.

Spots danced in front of her eyes as she got up to sit on the edge and cool down, so she decided she'd probably had enough of the hot water. It couldn't be good for Tarahn either, so limp and soft that he looked like he was close to melting; in a moment, certainly, runnels of yellow and purple would be running across the surface of the water.

Moriko smiled a bit and shook her head, before going to bug Liona and Rufus first, giving the raigar a few more minutes.

x.x.x.x.x

Her first thought was that Matt was sitting on the grass outside of the pokémon center beside a pile of burning tires, but as she got closer she realized it was the pokémon he'd caught back in the woods, the svarog.

She was hard to see clearly, being surrounded by a cloud of dark smoke that streamed away gently in the breeze; flames flickered along the ridge of her neck and back, and her eyes were a pair of half-hidden glowing coals. Only the lines of her snout and hooves were obvious.

Grass- and fire-type, she remembered from the pokédex entry. She supposed that was the result of the two opposing types: a pokémon that, itself, was burning.

Pigs were omnivorous, so the churned-up mess she was eating out of a basin was probably fine for her, but the mix of smells made Moriko's stomach turn over.

"_What_ is she eating?"

Matt smiled, still tired even after a long sleep. "I'm not sure; there's meat in there, rats and fish and mealworms, and tubers and rice and leaves and fruit…" He laughed at Moriko's expression. "Well, she likes it, so it's probably all right."

The svarog took that moment to bite down on some kind of rodent; the crackle of little bones made Moriko's knees twinge.

"Urgh. I forgot why I don't watch Tarahn eat, he likes to eat mice like that, too. So, are you feeling better?" she said to the svarog, who grunted and kept eating.

Matt laughed. "She's just grumpy. She remembers her bruises, if not much about what happened."

"Is she annoyed about being captured?"

"A little, but it's more about the principle of the thing. She says she can't go back, anyway. Arboar hate the smell of smoke, even if she was careful not to burn anything." He sighed, rubbing one eye. "Any luck with the mooskeg?"

She shook her head. "I haven't tried since the last time."

"Well, y'know, if you haven't got it, you haven't got it… _kidding_," he added, seeing the look on her face.

She rolled her eyes. "Russell still at the pity party?" she said, changing the subject.

Matt raised his eyebrows. "That's pretty flippant. You don't care that someone's been horribly scarred and a pokémon is probably headed for the axe?"

"I care about his borfang, I think there was obviously something messed up there. Even if they sometimes, rarely, get a little crazy, I wouldn't put it past David to have been doing something. Pokémon have to do something for a reason, and if she went crazy then _that_ happened for a reason."

Further eyebrow rise. "He's not your friend?"

Moriko made a face. "None of that group are. They were so shitty to me in middle school, sometimes I almost… well, Mackenzie I didn't know until later, but he's just like the rest. They tried to be nicer to me when we started in high school, but it was obviously because they watched some educational video on bullying and wanted to assuage their guilt. I can't stand them." She reddened a little, sensing that the amount of bile she'd just oozed forth was perhaps a little excessive, however deep the justification.

Matthew had an odd smile on his face. "I see I missed a lot of drama by being homeschooled. Probably for the best."

x.x.x.x.x

"A celestiule egg, huh?" Angela said, as she watched Russell's stantler play with the gray foal.

"I even got to ask Professor Alder about it. Apparently, it's weird but normal."

"You met Professor Alder?" said Victoria, snapping to attention.

"Yeah, back in Porphyry."

"Get _out_." Victoria stared at him in amazement. "That's awesome! He's, like, the authority on _everything_! What else did you ask him about?"

Russell grinned. "That's right, I remember how you wanted to be a pokémon professor, Vic. The visit was probably a little wasted on us."

She rolled her eyes. "Completely and utterly wasted. But seriously, did he say anything interesting? What was he working on?"

"Matt asked him about demon pokémon, and Moriko got the story of why professors all have tree names out of him."

"Oh whatever, you could have just asked me about that one," said Vic dismissively. "The tree names thing is nearly common knowledge, same as the bird names for pokémon doctors. _Tell me_ you asked what he was working on?"

"Okay okay, don't hurt the messenger," said Russell, waving his hands in an attempt to placate. "He said he was living there temporarily while he was waiting for a jumpship to some old ruins in the desert, apparently a bunch of professors were all being dragged out there in a hurry. Maple and Holly were there already when I talked to him, and he said Linden and Dogwood would be coming over soon. That was a while ago, so it's probably a big party by now."

Victoria put her head down on her folded arms. "Typical… they probably brought a cadre of students along with them, each one. Why didn't I enroll right away? Whyyyy…?" she groaned into the table.

"Aww Vic, it's probably nothing interesting," said Russell. "They always get excited and make everyone drop everything and come over, but it always ends up being some broken pots and a stretch of wall."

She sniffed. "I appreciate your attempts to sour-grapes me, but my heart is broken," she said, mock-dignified.

"So what's the celestiule like?" asked Angela. "I've never had an egg pokémon—Phoebus was from the breeder's in Verdure, but he'd been out of the egg for a while."

"She can be a bit strange at times, but apparently that's expected—they get a dose of racial memory or their parents' memory or something like that. One of those big mysteries. I take her out every day, even on the road, to socialize and now she's nearly normal."

Angela's mouth quirked a little. "_Nearly_ normal?"

"Well, she still comes out with odd things once in a while, but she was frankly creepy before. When she had just hatched, she looked around the room and said 'how dull'. I mean, she was in an egg!" Russell said, laughing. "How could anything be less dull than that?"

x.x.x.x.x

Everyone had their pokémon out in the exercise yard, it looked like, although she noticed that Russell's dirfox, still unevolved, was crouched underneath his chair. The poor thing had been nervous enough to begin with, but after his horrible experience in Porphyry, Conall seemed to be a mass of tics and twitches. The nurses at the pokémon center had recommended a break from battling, and hopefully time would help him get better, as it had after he was first captured.

She found an empty spot on the far side of the yard and let out Rufus and Tarahn before tossing the mooskeg's pokémon a safe distance ahead of her.

The moose pokémon had been hurt to begin with, never giving Moriko a chance to heal her in the field, and she'd been difficult enough to deal with then.

She'd been in her ball most of the time, but the repeated failed negotiations each evening between her and Moriko had slowly tired her out.

It was probably cruelty, but Moriko had refrained from giving her a session in a healing machine once she got into the city, and the result was that, for once, the mooskeg was too tired and hungry to swear and lunge at her.

She sat down, exhausted, but kept one eye on Moriko.

"Thought up anything else to try to say to me?"

Moriko sighed. "Just… give me a chance. You might find that you like battling. There's little danger in it—if anything goes wrong, you'll be fixed up in a second."

"Toil away at violent combat to make you look good? You know where you can put that," the mooskeg grunted.

"You'll never be in danger of starving, and you won't have to worry about becoming food for a predator."

"See these antlers? See these hooves? Pitiful bird-eaters like raigar and wintris hold no fear for me," she said proudly. "Anything else?"

"I managed to weaken you with two pokémon working in tandem," said Moriko. "Who's to say a pack of wintris couldn't do the same?"

"It's rare to see one wintris, let alone many, that far south," she sneered. "I'd take my chances over being a prisoner."

"Ursaring?"

"I'd take my chances."

Moriko sighed, rubbing her eyes. This was going nowhere. Even desperate and hungry, the mooskeg was too proud to submit.

"Look, I… I need you, okay? For this next battle. He uses fire pokémon, and you know water attacks. Just help me for this one battle. Help me win, and I'll let you go afterwards."

"And I to find my own way back, of course, after spending days blind and deaf in one of your void-prisons," she said scornfully. "What is the promise of an honorless whelp to me?"

"I swear I'll let you go. Just fight and cooperate with me for this one battle. _Please_."

The mooskeg was silent for some moments, pride battling with pragmatism. Eventually she sighed. "I suppose this can't get any worse. Very well. One fight, and then you release me fully healed and fed. Attempt to keep me, and I will fight to escape until I die."

Moriko nodded. "Agreed. I give you my word."

The moose pokémon sniffed, considering elaborating on precisely how much stock she put in a human's word, but instead rose shakily to her feet.

"Let's get you healed, then. Return," said Moriko.

x.x.x.x.x

"He says he doesn't know," said Angela.

All six of them were gathered around the rickety table in the pokémon center, even Moriko; the mystery was just too bizarre to pass on.

"He seemed pretty lucid, but he is on a lot of painkillers at the same time, so… Well, he said he couldn't remember. He remembers going out to train, and he was doing an exercise with Selene, and he thinks he remembers going to check on Ophelia and Branwyn…" Angela paused to blow her nose again. "He says everything after that is just a blur, flashes of waiting with us and then being on the jumpship, being in the hospital…" She sighed. "Who knows?"

"Ophelia and Branwyn were sparring?" asked Matt.

Angela nodded. "Mm-hmm, they can both fly—Branwyn is a brantmere—and they're both part grass, so he had them practice on each other a lot."

"Will he remember more later, do you think?" said Victoria, fiddling with a piece of paper.

"It was so traumatic," said Russell. "I doubt it. I think we'd need a psychic-type to try to sift through his memories."

"I… have a theory about what happened," said Matt.

They all looked at him. Moriko couldn't help feeling a twinge of annoyance. Matt, the know-it-all, holder of knowledge, would now dispense a grain of thought to the masses.

"I don't know you guys very well, of course—we've only met briefly a couple of times—but there're a few things I noticed about this whole thing, and I think I can try to explain it.

"First, I noticed that Dave is a fairly physical guy, touching shoulders, pats on the back…" he waved a hand vaguely, looking at them for confirmation.

"Yeah," said Mackenzie. "Yeah, he is like that. I remember I thought it was kinda weird when I first met him."

Angela nodded, her expression searching. "He always liked to hold hands and all that when we were going out."

Matt nodded. "Okay. The second thing is something I've observed over time—pokémon have a mode that they go into when they're battling. Heart rate increases, their senses sharpen—fairly obvious fight-or-flight responses, but I've noticed that sometimes their entire personality can change. A gregarious pokémon can turn snarling and vicious. They revert back to normal after the battle's over—usually.

"So, you said that the borfang was sparring right before it happened. So what if she was in that battle mindset, and Dave struck her—not violently, but like he was patting her on the back? What if she struck him and… got carried away?"

They were silent, watching him, while the bustle of the 'center went on in the background.

Hesitantly Angela nodded. "It was an accident, that's what Selene said. And Ophelia…"

"It broke her mind," Matthew said flatly. "She'd done the worst wrong she could imagine, and yet she wanted to go on attacking."

A few heartbeats passed in silence, and then:

"What's going to happen to Ophelia?" Mackenzie asked.

"The law's pretty clear," said Angela dully. "I don't know what she's like right now, she's had a go in the healing machine but she hasn't been out of her ball. But if she's a danger to others, then…"

"I would almost recommend it," said Matt quietly. "If her mind is damaged, then it would be a mercy more than anything else."

Angela nodded, dabbing at her eyes again. "Dave will decide when he's ready." She sighed. "He's going to have to go home after this, back to Port Littoral. And I think I'm going to go too."

Victoria patted her on the arm. "Are you sure, Ange?"

Angela smiled weakly. "I just… need a break. It's been so overwhelming. And maybe I'm a little superstitious, but I don't think this is a good summer. I mean, those kids getting killed on the road, those women in Porphyry…" She sighed again. "Yeah, I think I want to go home. I'm not even sure if I can focus enough to get the badge here."

"Three badges is pretty good for one summer," said Kenzie. "Even kids in Johto and Kanto are lucky to do that, and they don't have to go through what we do. I'm sure it'd be easy to pick up the thread."

Moriko took the opportunity to wander away, now that they were talking about Angela.

_Just an accident, huh?_ she thought, walking out of the 'center. The sun was setting, the sky banded green and orange and red.

Just a little misunderstanding, and a life was broken, sundered. David was probably going to need plastic surgery for the damage to his face, but he'd got off lucky.

What kind of game were they playing out here that the stakes were so high?

We go around abducting animals and forcing them to fight for us, came a thought. Are we, torn faces and missing hearts, getting what we deserve?

She tried to treat them as friends, as partners. Honest. It was worth it. Glory was worth it. Was she a slaver, at the end of the road? Should she expect fire or poison or a razor beak, striking with the power she'd help them develop? Would she have to account for her sins?

She didn't know. She didn't know.

The sun set, the first stars appearing to shine in the velvety darkness; moths fluttered against the outdoor lights of the pokémon center.

Eventually she went back inside. There were some things she couldn't deal with. Not yet.

x.x.x.x.x

My WoW subscription expired not four days and I've already got a chapter to show for it. O:) How telling. Typed this up while procrastinating on various lab assignments, of course. Low reviewer turnout for the last chapter (cries self to sleep), but then I've got stories I've been procrastinating on reading for months so I probably shouldn't talk. n.n; Much love for all your attention and the reviewer response is in the forums as always. Squee!


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